Hello everyone! Thanks for joining me for this post. I’m really excited for it and I think you’re going to come away from it with some really helpful information that can make your life better, both personally and professionally. Today we’re going to continue the conversation from the last post about how to get more done in less time. I want to concentrate on two simple yet very important things: daily planning and practicing gratitude. Let’s take a look at how these work.
1. Daily Planning
What it is: I became familiar with this during my first job out of college. I worked for a really wonderful company called E. & J. Gallo Winery, and they had a comprehensive manual that laid out their sales process and how they did things. One part of their process involved planning your day. I would write down the top three things I wanted to accomplish each day, then looked at the week ahead and broke things down into manageable tasks. I was able to organize each day around what I wanted to accomplish during it.
I know some of you have heard this before, and it sounds really simple. Yet very few people try it, and even fewer make it a habit. When I first started in sales hardly any managers or salespeople did it. I crushed many of them as a result. Some of these people were very experienced, yet there I was killing it in my first month or two. These were talented, hardworking people, but I had a huge advantage over them because I followed this simple organizational process.
How to do it: All you need to do is carve out five, ten, or fifteen minutes each and every day for some quiet time, during which you figure out what the top one to three things are that you need to accomplish during the day. What you’ll want to do is look at your weekly and monthly plans and then break them up into smaller, day-by-day segments. Just do that every single day and write it down somewhere.
2. Practicing Gratitude
What it is: This is even simpler than the first tip, although it’s done by even fewer people. Yet this is another one of those tried and true things that gets your mind in the right place. As I’ve said before a minuscule number of people do this, but it barely takes up any time. All I’m talking about is taking a small chunk of time every day to consider what you’re grateful for.
How to do it: Write down what you’re grateful for, or say it out loud. If you want, you can do both. Just think about the things you’re most thankful for in life, or something you’re particularly thankful for today. Doing this does something to your brain that allows you to be thankful throughout the day. It also reduces worry, which allows you to get more done in less time. Last, but not least, it makes your day more enjoyable.
Conclusion
I want to challenge you on these two little things. Pre-plan the top one to two things you want to accomplish each day, and say what you’re thankful for. That’s it! These things allow you to get into a good place mentally, you’ll have your plans in place, and you can go out and take action. So I encourage you to go out, make it happen, and have a better than amazing day!
