My simple daily plan

My last post covered my morning routine and why “winging it” just doesn’t work for any top tier professional looking for consistent high-level performance. In short, it’s the concept of getting yourself in the right place mentally (many ways to do this) and enjoying the art of discipline, whilst keeping degrees of flexibility during your day, regarding your evolving task list.

The morning routine from the previous post leads me up until I “officially” start my daily duties, whether that be in the office, car or home.

I work a very simple tasks list in a paper diary, with easy to understand and execute priority lists. It is imperative that the process is easy to execute and simple to read/understand, as any wasted time or energy detracts from my quality of delivery, which ultimately is the most important aspect.

My diary is like most, with a day to a page with time slots on the left-hand side. I colour code my tasks list as follows:

Black – Non-negotiable tasks – these are tasks that must get done no matter what. Tasks such as payroll sign off, bill run sign off, self-development work, social media updates, contact with key members in the business, monthly actions list work and key report analysis.

Red – Time specific tasks – these are tasks that must be completed at a certain time. Tasks such as customer meetings, lunch, staff training sessions, supplier meetings, conference calls with key individuals in my supply chain, picking my kids up from school or video-based product demonstrations.

Blue – Evolving tasks – these are not time specific, but are important they get completed. I can be flexible when I do these tasks, as it doesn’t matter whether these are completed at 8am or 8pm as long as they are done.

It’s either black, red or blue. Nothing else. Diaries are written the Friday prior to every following week to ensure the “plan” is thought out and covers all aspects to my role. This is the same for everyone at every level of my company. This gives me/them a "practice run" on my week, meaning I can think holistically and spot problems with my preparations prior to being in the heat of the battle.

The benefits of working in this manner mean that regardless of what curve balls are thrown my way, they get easily noted, prioritised and executed. Its super scalable and I don’t miss meetings or accept lateness/substandard delivery in myself or others that work in this way.

I’m also very blessed to have always had great people working along side me, people that if business critical persists across many tasks, I can drop one of my blues onto their tasks list and they can execute on my behalf, if it’s something that is critical to me but not necessarily needed me to be directly involved.

There is no fast way solution to cover all potential elements that may arise in a day or week, but I certainly feel very confident and tooled up to handle whatever comes my way, via this method.

AK