Always ask yourself, Is what I am working on right now the best use of my time? How will you know if it is the best use of your time? It will be the best use if:

It is going to help you achieve your goals

It is the item with the highest value to you, your customers, or your company

It can’t be delegated

Rather than focusing on when you need to finish something, focus on when you need to start. Then start when you need to. One reason projects and tasks don’t get finished on time is that we think we have plenty of time, so we put off the important work in favor of the urgent items—until the important becomes urgent.

Schedule the most important work during the time when your energy is highest. The earlier in the day, the better. Take control of the day before it takes control of you. Don’t put off doing things you don’t like doing but are necessary.

Plan what you will work on. If you don’t have a plan you will tend to allow yourself to be interrupted, distracted, and delayed from accomplishing what is most important to you. You would usually not consider taking a vacation without planning it out. Why does your work deserve any less?

Recognize that you will need to make adjustments. There will always be some interruptions. There will be changes in the work that must be done. Build into your schedule some time for interruptions and new or unexpected work. When you have a “margin of safety” it helps you maintain control.

Whenever you have a choice, don’t cram things together. If one of the activities runs late, you’ll be rushing from one project to the next or one appointment to the next. That creates additional stress that you don’t need. Allow some extra minutes between appointments, for example, so that you won’t be as rushed.

Keep your desk or work area free of clutter. Clutter distracts you from your primary task. It also creates additional stress. Keeping things in order promotes a feeling of control.

Principles of Proactive Planning

Planning takes time; not planning takes more time.

It takes a lot less to prevent a crisis than it takes to solve it.

You can’t eliminate interruptions, but you can control them.

Review your results for the day with these questions:

Did you accomplish your most important priority?

What trends do you notice about how you spent your time?

What was the most productive part of your day? Why?

What was the least productive part of your day? Why?

What or who caused the majority of interruptions?

What could you do to control these interruptions?

What was your biggest time waster?