How To Set Yourself Up For A Productive Day ⚙️

I see you. Scrambling to do ‘all the things’—emails, phone calls, DMs, errands, client record keeping, chasing down new business, meeting payroll—it can be an exhausting hamster wheel of fun times, right?

Not when this is your mindset month after month!

To prevent burnout and get ahead of your day, many productivity researchers recommend setting up your next day's tasks the night before. This way you can prioritize your top three tasks and organize them in a way that keeps your head clear and your focus in the right direction.

In the early 1900’s, Ivy Lee, an early business ‘coach’ if you will, was instrumental in helping Bethlehem Steel’s owner Charles Schwab become even more successful. Mr. Lee taught Mr. Schwab how to be more efficient with his daily tasks. In just three weeks, by implementing the tips below, Mr. Schwab put into practice each tip and noticed an immense positive change in his business (read ‘he made LOADS more cash’!).

Here is Mr. Lee’s advice:

Every evening before finishing your work day:

1. Write down 3 to 5 things you plan to get done the next day
2. Rank these tasks from highest to lowest priority.
3. Start working on your task with the highest priority first thing in the morning.
4. Only go to task #2 once task #1 is finished.

That’s it. 

The true test here is to make sure that you have completed each task in the order of priority before advancing to the next task. It can be tempting to hop to the next item on the list but resist this urge.

If you don’t complete your three or five tasks in a given day, don’t worry about it. If you just get two tasks done, that’s still great! The most important goal is to get that number one priority task completely finished.

As you get better at recognizing each of the tasks on your ‘to do’ list and their priority of importance, you will be better able to figure out those three to five tasks each day. You’ll also realize how small you need to break your tasks down in order for them to be manageable in a given day.

Imagine how good it will feel to hit that number one priority task every morning and knock it off the list (really, really good right?).

At the end of three weeks, the story goes that Mr. Schwab wrote Mr. Lee a HUGE cheque with a note saying that these four tips about productivity were massively impactful for him.

Bethlehem Steel Company became the single biggest independent steel producer in the world in just five short years. Mr. Schwab was made one of the wealthiest people in the world.

Inspired? Me too.

Cheering you on from the sidelines,

P.S. If you like these tips and would like more supportive wellness and productivity recommendations, head over to find us on Instagram here.