What will you do today?

"Wait a minute and I'll get back to you after I check my to-do list..

If only it were that easy or if only someone would create our daily action lists for us breaking down our deliverables into actionable tasks aligning them with not only the best time to tackle them but what's more important. We get paid big bucks to deliver what we’re assigned. We usually know what to do and how to go about. Sometimes we get distracted by all there is to do.

One might consider their to-do list to be all the things that they have to get done.

Every thing.

Personally, I think that’s a really big list. I’m all for listing everything you’d like to accomplish, but to be effective, I suggest doing a little more personal strategic thinking to understand which tasks are dependent upon others and what items are more important than others.

You might have twelve weeks to complete a project with many of your daily tasks tied to each other. You certainly wouldn’t list all of these in your Monday planner; you’d space them out allowing time for meetings, suppliers to get back with you, and for your own personal brainiac time.

You likely have two to five projects and they are all at different stages. You likely have other tasks due unrelated to these projects.

What do you work on?

I remember being given a very tricky choice by my first employer when I was eighteen. They asked if I wanted to be paid hourly or on a weekly salary. My first thought was to jump at the hourly rate thinking that would pay out better in the long run. The guy countered that I was probably so efficient that I wouldn’t need more than forty hours. Since then it has gotten me thinking that if I could be so efficient to be able to leave the office for the week when my work was done, wouldn’t that counter those other weeks when heavy workloads required longer work hours?

When you go on vacation and leave say.. on a Thursday, isn’t it true that you get done that short week what might have taken you five days if you hadn’t planned the time off?

With some companies shortening work weeks to save on salary payouts and energy costs, do you think the work volume has changed? If anything some of those same companies have experienced layoffs and those left behind in the office have a heavier workload.

You will get done what you have to do in the time you are allowed.

You will get done what you have to do in the time you are allowed. So, my question to you is:

What would you do with more time?

My message to you is this: Consider what is imperative to get done this week to move your projects forward and do those tasks early – like by Wednesday afternoon. Use the rest of the week to be creative, start another project, or simply have more personal time.

When do you work?

Don't worry, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty if you happen to be reading this at work, but if you said 8 - 5 or some derivative thereof, think again.

I'd like to know when you do your best work.

I'm not talking about when you go to work. We all go to work. We go typically at a time predetermined by either our boss or society. We show up when it's expected. Because we're not drones however, turning our brains on or off is not necessarily something someone else can control. Frankly I'm not sure we can either. Sure I can influence my brain to start working whether it's with coffee, bribe of an impending vacation, threat of missing a deadline and the anger of a client, or with a shiny new computer, but let's face it, our mind works when it wants to.

I started thinking today about how I wanted to write about time management and how to be more effective at work but as I started writing and rewriting several times, I realized that describing making the most of our time in a short post was fruitless. For today, I just want to focus on when to show up.

I'd like you to think for a moment about a time when you recognized your brain fully engaged and you were really groovin' on an idea and the creative juices in your head.

Got one?

ok, now think of another one. Just one more.

There's a lot of this whole work better, smarter, faster dynamic, but for today, I'd like you to consider what time of the day do you recall experiencing real brain power? Of those two moments you just recalled, what time of the day did they occur? What did the room look like during those power sessions? Maybe you weren't even stationary; perhaps you were in a plane, train, or automobile?

The point is that there are certain times of the day and there are specific surroundings that enable your brain to get into overdrive. What happens in overdrive?

W O R K

Good work Break.throughs Solutions Ideation Gro.wth Passion Momentum E*n*e*r*g*y

Below I provide you with a snapshot of my week to give you an idea of how I work within my zone. I've discovered that while I'm not a morning person, once I've got up and went, it's the most productive part of my day while the afternoon is more focused on the sunshine and what's next. You'll see that for the most part I try and schedule my brainiac time in both the mid-morning hours and later evening hours.

When are you the most productive?

Call it a time journal, call it a pain, but record your activities and how you feel brain-power wise throughout the day for a few weeks and see if you can define your personal brainiac time.

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