You start your day staring at an overwhelming list of tasks and a pile of unread emails. Great. Where do you even start? Follow these 5 core principles to begin your day more like ☀ and less like ? or even worse….?.
- Touch base with every aspect of your responsibilities, so you can prevent fires before you have to put them out.
- Set timelines for yourself, sometimes it will take less, sometimes it will take more. But setting a time helps you put a cap on how long something should take. Also, it gives you tangible goals that boost your moral (yay! I checked my emails in 30 min).
- Incoming messages before tasks, this means you avoid double work if a message changes a task you previously had. Maybe you don’t have to do it anymore, or maybe you have to do something different.
- Take breaks! Staring at a computer continuously for more than 20 minutes is damaging to your eyes. Also, this tackles the biggest issue as a new business owner, separate your manager side with your “employee” side. First work on your manager tasks, take a break and clock in to demolish those tasks!
- Now, when it’s time to do tasks, focus. Not everyone is available 24/7. If you can tackle clients and communication early, you prevent from being interrupted later on.
My estimated daily schedule:
- Check emails – 30 min max – only reply to emails that will take less than a minute, keep unread ones you need to get back to
- Check slack messages – 30 min max – quick reply as needed or keep unread ones you need to get back to
- Check Account Management Board – 1 hr max – only send out emails less than 15min
- Check Asana tasks – 30 min max – add any if needed from steps 1-3, review past due & priority, organize the order to get them done
- Take a 10 min break – step away from the computer, breathe, and go back to dive in
Make your own daily schedule with a combination of respecting these core values and testing what works best for you.
