In This Episode…
I wish every day could be like it has been today. It has been a great day that has kept me focused and as a result, it has meant I have been very productive.
It is important to catch what works well so in this episode I describe how well my day has gone and what has contributed to its success.
Episode Transcript
Hi, and welcome to today’s episode of the Profit Productivity Podcast . It’s your host, Michael Tipper. Who else would it be?
Today has been a really, really focused and productive day. And as I record this, I am just at the end of the day.
It’s 10:30 in the evening and I’m now just reflecting on what has gone really well. I think the start of it comes from yesterday.
Getting very clear on what my focus was for the week, having reflected on what my focus is for this month was key.
I planned the week with the key objectives and the key commitments I’ve got this week. Then from that, I’m able to plan what I intend to do in my day.
So yesterday I spent some time planning my day with my daily planning sheet and worked out exactly what my objectives were and when I was going to work on those individual objectives.
Today has been a milestone day because I’ve just taken on a virtual assistant. The day has been primarily focused on getting them started and monitoring and supporting them in their first day.
Keeping A Time Log To Track My Activities Is Highly Recommended
I spent about two and a half hours doing that today from looking at my time log.
I’m back keeping a time log which I’m doing for the whole of June and probably longer.
I’ve just gone through all my activities throughout the day to see where the time was spent and it makes quite interesting readings.
Certainly a big focus of today has been helping my new virtual assistant start the day correctly and get her up and running.
That will go on for the rest of the week and will be an important theme for this week.
I then spent some time writing content for my LinkedIn posts, which I normally do at the weekends, but I got tied up at the weekend, getting ready for my VA to come on board so I left it until today.
That took up a considerable amount of time.
I’ve also been tracking when I have been accessing LinkedIn to do the various routines that I’ve started to include into my daily routine. These will help me promote myself and expand my network and market myself online. That’s been interesting to have a look at as well.
So a key feature of today is I have ordered and sequence the things that I wanted. And then I’ve just got on and done them in that order and sequence until they have been done.
As I look at my daily planning sheet I’m really pleased with what has happened. There’s one task that didn’t get done and that’s a relatively big task. But I’m focusing on doing that tomorrow and needs the go-ahead from a client before I can proceed. So that’s sort of parked for today.
To be realistic, I probably couldn’t have fitted that in even if they’d given the go ahead.
Now I’m recording this episode at the end of the day, just to reflect on how today has gone. Certainly keeping the time log and keeping track of when I changed tasks has really helped me.
Keep Track Of Every Time You Change Tasks
I record every time I change tasks and have been quite rigorous with that, to the extent where sometimes even if I only do a two minute task, I’ve recorded it.
That’s important because I’ve been able to spot when I’m drifting into looking at social media and checking WhatsApp messages.
Previously I’ve been just aimlessly opening those apps up.
Now I’m conscious of when that’s happened so I can start to see that pattern occurring.
When I’m aware of that, all of a sudden I get more focus on spending more quality time doing the task in hand.
So it’s quite ironic that it not only spots where I do drift off, but actually, because I’m looking for those drift offs, I drift off less.
Overall I’m really pleased with today.
I’m just going to plan tomorrow with a view of recreating that level of urgency, that level of commitment and the level of progress on moving my goals forward.
That’s today’s episode.
Until tomorrow.
