6 Ways to Kick Start your Week
It’s Monday and your pumped and ready to go (or your tired from a big weekend!).Friday has passed and last week was a hectic week at work and you’ve probably got a few jobs that you didn’t get complete over the week. The weekend is for relaxing, sleeping and unwinding and then BAM back into Monday! How do you prepare for the tough week ahead? Here are a few of my tips that’s get me organize and planned.
DON’T CHECK YOUR EMAILS until 10.30am Monday Morning
If you get to work and first thing you do is check your emails, you maybe setting your self up for a non-productive day. I’m sure you had a task that you needed to complete on Friday, so grab it, sit down for 60 mins and dedicate that whole time to your task. Don’t check facebook, social media or emails just yet!
Coffee Time & Emails
You’ve just done that job from Friday, all complete and your pumped and ready to go.. it’s time head on in and check your emails! Bam you’ve just been hit with 30 new leads, responsed promptly, don’t leave it until the next day. You can set up an automated response to allow for ease of reply. Make sure you have a strategy in place for email response.
Planning for the week / Weekly To Do List
Next it’s time to see what’s on your agenda for the week. As they say “if you fail to plan you plan to fail”, and this is so true. Write down all your top priority jobs for the week and map them out. You’ll probably already have a to do list but now it’s time to break it down.
Break down your weekly list to daily lists
Now you know you have an entire weeks work in front of you, priorities these tasks into working minutes. Is it a 4 hour job, hour or it could be a quick 15 min job? Knowing how long each task is going to take will allow you to plan your day and be super productive. There isn’t anything worse than jumping from job to job during the day and then feeling like you’ve completed nothing. (I’ve been there done that!) Productivity is number one!
Categories those list into T1 / T2 and T3
Here is my little secret to getting jobs done one time. I prioritise them in order of importance. If you have a client deadline, that’s your Task 1, if you have a coffee date with a friend that you haven’t seen in weeks… that’s number 3. (yep keep working hours in your working day ie 9 to 5!). I have a highlighter for each Task.
T1 – TOP Priority those tasks that you must get done first (No more than 3)
T2 – These are tasks that you can do after you’ve completed your Q1’s (No more than 3)
T3’s – These don’t have a deadline, you can do them once you’ve complete the above T1 and
Prioritise your time and work in blocks of 30, 45 or 60 mins.
It can be daunting to have a pile of work in front of you and as mine stacks up, there no time like ever to be organised. If you don’t have your mind directly set on one task you will wonder from one job to the next, but be sure to keep on track and delegate your work to the time you’ve dedicated. I like to work in blocks of 30 mins. 30 mins flat track… no stopping, no toilet break, coffee break until that 30 mins is up!
How do you plan your day and track your work? I’d love to hear your tips and tricks as I’m always looking at ways to improve my productivity. Don’t forget sign up to our newsletter to get more great tips and tricks on all things business and design.
Enjoy your productive day!
Christal