| HOW TO ACCOMPLISH MORE EACH DAY & SUCCEED When you leave for your office in the morning, do you have a written plan on what you will accomplish that day? Are you clear on what needs to be accomplished, and how you will accomplish your goals/tasks? Or do you go to work without a clear plan? Do you get caught up in doing things that seem to take priority over everything else at the time? Do you spend your day putting out fires and not getting any closer to accomplishing your goals? If you don't have a scheduler program, get one. There are many great programs out there such as MS OUTLOOK, Palm Desktop, etc. (There are too many programs to name here, but you get the point.) If you own a palm or handheld device but don't use it (I know many people that fall into this category), it's time that you start using it. Obviously at the time you made the purchase, you knew that you needed to take control of your time/schedule. And though you may have failed to take control of your time yesterday, that doesn't mean that you have to fail again today. The number one rule to using a PIM (personal information manager) or any scheduler program or device, is to open it up and look at it every day. If you follow this rule, then you will never forget an appointment or important event. Why try to remember all the little details in your life, when you can exploit technology to do the remembering for you? Anyway, back to planning your day. 1. Always plan your day, the night before. Take 15 minutes and enter in all appointments you have scheduled for the next day (if you haven't done so already). Make sure that you block out the actual time for each appointment. 2. Make a list of all the tasks that you need to accomplish for the day and block out the time you will need to accomplish each task. By blocking out the time, you will have a visual representation of your work day and you will know what can and cannot be accomplished during your work day. 3. Do not mistake goals for tasks. A goal is made up of a number of tasks. Don't make the mistake of blocking out one hour to accomplish a goal, when the three tasks that make up the goal will actually take three hours to complete. 4. Look at your schedule/plan throughout the day to keep yourself on schedule. 5. Don't get caught up and start working on things that are not on your schedule/plan. When issues arise that are not part of your schedule/plan, don't drop your plans to address the issues. Instead, plan in advance for the issues that "pop up", and block out an hour at the end of your work day that you can use to address those issues. Don't let incoming phone calls mess up your schedule either. Let the caller know that you are in a meeting (you don't have tell them that you are in a meeting with yourself), and that you will call them back (during the hour you blocked up for the issues that "pop up"). BOTTOM LINE: If at the end of the day you feel like you have not accomplished anything, chances are you didn't plan your day. If you did plan your day and you still feel like you didn't accomplish anything, chances are you didn't follow your plan. | 
