A guaranteed way to leave work and feel a sense of accomplishment every day

August 1, 2015 1 Comment

Finish LineUsing a 10-minute Daily Review is a sure-fire way to leave work every day and feel a sense of accomplishment. Additionally, you will enjoy the corresponding decrease in stress that comes with knowing you completed everything you wanted to get done for the day.

If you follow GTD and keep your trusted system up to date with specific Next Actions for your Projects, then it is easy to do this by performing a 10-minute Daily Review every morning. A Daily Review consists of two things – 1) review your calendar for available time that day 2) scan your Next Action lists and decide what you want to complete before going home from work. It’s that simple and usually doesn’t even take 10 minutes.

For me, it is as simple as carving out 10 minutes first thing every morning to look at my calendar to get a sense of what my day looks like. Then, once I know how much available time I have and what the blocks of time look like (large contiguous chunks or small fragmented ones) I have the appropriate context to decide what I want to tackle for the day. I simply scan my Next Actions and mark those items with a “Today” tag.

Finally, I filter those items with the Today tag so I only have the items I have decided I want to accomplish that day. Since Evernote works on my Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad and Galaxy Edge, I have my Today list on each of the devices I use. I leave this Today list up on all my devices and during the course of the day as I accomplish items on the list I delete them.

As soon as I have an empty Today list, I know I have completed all the agreements I have with myself for the day.

By doing a Daily Review each morning and deciding exactly what I intend to accomplish that day, I effectively create a “finishing line” at the end of each workday. Once I cross that imaginary line, I can start to put the workday behind me and start shifting my attitude, heart, and mind towards the next part of my day — whether that’s social, exercise, recreation, or family time.

I can’t tell you what a great feeling it is to look at that empty Today list and know that I have accomplished everything I set out to do for the day. This knowledge allows me to drive home and decompress by tuning out by watching TV, reading a book, talking to my wife and kids or whatever. I’m in the mood to relax and refresh knowing I had a productive day.

Performing a Daily Review allows you to clarify your thoughts, collect yourself, refresh and renew, by setting yourself up for having a feeling of accomplishment. Equally important, is the ability to forget all the things I didn’t do because I consciously choose not to do them but are still on my plate is essential to relieving stress.

Successful task management is really agreement management. At the end of the day, how good you feel about what you did and didn’t do correlates to how well you think you kept agreements with yourself. Did you actually do what you told yourself you would do?

I believe in outcomes and results, not time worked or effort exerted. Once I have completed all the items on my Today list I can go home feeling good about myself no matter what time that is – sometimes it’s late at night and sometimes it’s early in the evening. In those situations, I can feel good about going home earlier than normal. It is a wonderful feeling knowing I accomplished all the agreements I made with myself.

Since I have started this practice, I am far less distracted when I arrive home. I feel more in control, and have a feeling of clarity about what I have accomplished towards completing my priorities. Most importantly, it enables me to “switch off” from work when I’m at home and engage fully with the people I love most.

Crossing your finish line each day is something that not only leaves you feeling satisfied and fulfilled, but motivates you to finish well and decreases your stress.

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Work/Life Balance is a Myth

February 22, 2014 2 Comments

Work Life BalanceI just read a great article in the Harvard Business Review entitled “Manage Your Work, Manage Your Life” that highlighted how many of today’s most successful executives attempt to manage the Work/Life Balance. According to the article, “Work/life balance is at best an elusive ideal and at worst a complete myth.”

Many people profess to to seek a “balance” between work and life.   What they really mean is they want to strike a balance between work and family. Well I have bad news… There is no such thing as a Work/Life balance. That’s right – there’s no “balance.” If you’re trying to achieve balance, you’re going to fail. Balance isn’t the answer. The best you can hope for is “dynamic tension” between the two. But, there is a way to be at peace about the work and family struggle.

In today’s alway on, always connected world it there is no longer a distinct “work time” and a distinct “personal time.” Just acknowledge it and get over it.  In the era before email, smartphones, tablets, instant messaging, social networks, etc. we all had relatively predictable days. Now we all have unpredictable random work streams that come at us constantly 7×24.

We all feel the need to always be on and connected in order to keep up. This is why people feel compelled to constantly check their email of their FaceBook feeds. FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out psychologically compels us to check just in case. The reality is everyone else is NOT doing it better than you, and you’re NOT the only one feeling stressed and worried about everything, and feeling like you’re almost failing at both. Here is what to do:

Don’t attempt to have separate work and personal systems. You just have your life and all the associated commitments and stuff in your life. Do separate your contexts – what you can only do at the office and what you can only do at home – such that when you are ready to do you have your next actions broken down into the appropriate context to getting things done.

Then at the beginning of each day at the office, look at your calendar to see what hard commitments you have and how much discretionary time you have.  Then, look at your Next Actions lists and decide what you realistically want to accomplish today before you go home.

I stress the realistic part of this. Assign a “Today” tag to the next actions you want to accomplish today.  Then filter your next actions on TODAY so you only see those items you decided you want to accomplish today.  Once you can check off or delete all those things that you set out to accomplish in the morning at the office, GO HOME. Feel good about accomplishing what you set out to accomplish and go home to be with your loved ones.

Once your home be fully engaged with your family.  No multitasking. Sure, maybe a little email after your partner and the kids go to bed, but that’s all.

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The Power of the Daily Review

January 18, 2014

Time for ReviewIf you follow GTD and keep your trusted system up to date, then it is easy to leave work every day and feel like you have accomplished exactly what you needed to do for that day.  I do this by performing a 10 minute Daily Review every morning.

A Daily Review is simply carving out 10 minutes every morning to look at my calendar to get a sense of what my day looks like.  Then, once I know how much available time I have to dedicate to accomplishing the tasks I have in my trusted system I have the appropriate context to know what is realistic to accomplish. Then I scan my “Next Actions” notebooks in Evernote to decide what I want to accomplish that day and I tag them with the “Today” tag.  Then, I filter those items with the Today tag so I only have the items I have decided I want to accomplish that day and I leave this “Today List” up on all my devices.  Then, during the course of the day as I accomplish items on the list I delete them.  When I have an empty Today List, I know I have completed all the agreements I have with myself for the day.

I can’t tell you what a great feeling it is to look at that empty Today List and know that I have accomplished everything I set out to do for the day. This allows me to drive home and decompress by tuning out and watching TV, reading a book, talking to my wife and kids or whatever activity I’m in the mood to relax and refresh knowing I had a productive day.  Equally important, is the ability to forget all the things I didn’t do because I consciously choose not to do them but are still on my plate is essential to relieving stress.

Finish LineBy doing a Daily Review each day and deciding exactly what I intend to accomplish that day, I am creating a “finishing line” at the end of the workday. Once I cross that imaginary line in the sand, I can put the day behind me and start shifting my attitude, heart, and mind towards the next part of your day — whether that’s exercise, recreation, or family time.  Practicing the Daily Review allows you to clarify your thoughts, collect yourself, refresh, refuel, and renew yourself by having a feeling of accomplishment.

Successful task management is really agreement management. At the end of the day, how good you feel about what you did (and what you didn’t do) is proportional to how well you think you kept agreements with yourself.  Did you do what you told yourself you would do? Did you accomplish what you think should have been accomplished?

Wasting time only means that you think you should have been doing something other than what you were doing. Sleep is not a waste of time if you think you need it. Taking a walk instead of rewriting your strategic plan is not a waste of time as long as you think taking a walk is the thing to do at that moment. It’s when you wind up not having done that which you’ve agreed with yourself should be done that the trouble begins.

I believe in outcomes and results not time worked or effort.  Once I have completed all the items on my Today List I can go home feeling good about myself no matter what time that is.  It is a wonderful feeling knowing I accomplished all the agreements I made with myself.

Since I have started this practice, I am far less grumpy when I arrive home. I feel more in control, and I have a feeling of clarity about what I have accomplished.  Most importantly, it enables me to “switch off” from work when I’m at home and engage fully with the people I love most.  Crossing your finish line each day is something that not only leaves you feeling satisfied and fulfilled, but motivates you to finish well.

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