Mastering Your Day | Accelerate Success with Lorraine Moore

Busy CEOs and executives must juggle multiple demands on their time. One way to address this is to master your day. Here’s an exercise taken from my book, The 360 Degree CEO that will help you take control of your time and take action to get things done.

Every morning before you do anything else in the office, like check voicemail, read e-mail, stop by someone’s office to ask about their weekend, do these things:

Write down the six things you would want to accomplish, even if you completed nothing else during your day.
Take action.
Complete these six tasks before you do anything else.

My clients’ lists have included: call Customer A and B; arrange a medical appointment; prepare for a Board meeting; schedule a difficult conversation with a colleague; set a date for a planning session; or review the most recent sales report.

If your current practice is to arrive at the office and immediately jump into meetings and activity, you have a few options:

Create your list every evening for the next day.
Create your list before you leave the house.
Arrive earlier to the office.
Block off 30 to 45 minutes in your calendar every day – first thing – to action these items.

What you will discover is that these six items are typically ones with longer-term benefits: to your health; to relationships with others; to refreshing your leadership capabilities; to your company’s brand; or to raising the bar on your performance. They are frequently priorities that are small but powerful.

The time required to complete them will vary; sometimes it’s an hour, sometimes as long as two hours, depending on your most important priorities at the time. I expect you will find, like others have, that most days you will knock off these tasks in less than 30 minutes. If you have a large, and potentially daunting, project in front of you – use one of your six tasks to schedule blocks of time in your calendar to work on the large project.

What are the 6 things you must complete today?

Want more helpful exercises like this one? Elevate your leadership performance by learning from some of the best. Pick up a copy of my book, The 360 Degree CEO: Generating Profits While Leading and Living with Passion and Principles available on Amazon.

My clients accelerate their results – increasing profitability, leadership performance, innovation, and accountability. I would love to discuss how I might contribute to your success. Contact me today.

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