The Daily Review

Every morning I have 30 minutes scheduled for a Daily Review and Sync where I spend the first 15 minutes reviewing my calendar and Next Actions lists and the second 15 minutes syncing with my assistant. This aligns us on the priorities for the day and gives her my “marching orders” for the day.

During the first 15 minutes I Review my calendar to see what the day has in store for me and how much free time I have to get work done. Once I have that context I review my Next Actions list to see what things I want to try to accomplish during the rest of the day. For items I want to accomplish today I assign a tag of “today” to them in Evernote.

My assistant has access to my Next Actions folder in Evernote and she prints them out and comes into my office to review the items I have tagged. We discuss them so she has the appropriate context for what needs to happen and then she schedules time in my calendar to get them done. As any CIO knows you really only have so much control over your day as you have to react to the reality of the day.

My boss may call, a major system may go down, someone may call with news that requires action, I may have to deal with an HR issue, whatever… I call this being “overtaken by events.” When these things come up and I can not do the work I intended to do, I am able to recover. Because I have done a Daily Review and synced with my assistant she has the context and priorities to reschedule the day.

I am often overtaken by events but when I am, my assistant has the ability to course correct and make sure I am able to keep on track. I may end up staying at work longer than I want to but when I do leave I have the satisfaction of knowing I accomplished what I set out to accomplish at the beginning of the day.