The Achiever’s First Task of the Day

A tip that has helped me for many years in planning my day comes from the out of print book The Advanced Day Planner User’s Guide by Hyrum w. Smith.  What he recommended as the very first, highest priority task you set every day is a to write down "Planning and solitude" at the top of the list. 

There are several reasons this is a great task to start out your day with:

   It is simple, therefore easily doable
   You get momentum going first thing (see my post The 5-minute productivity breakthrough for more information on why that’s important)
   You get to check off a task on your list as completed – thus getting a boost in attitude
   Since it’s your highest priority task, it will get done and set you up for other successes throughout the day.

It doesn’t take much time, just about 10-15 minutes sitting by yourself in a quiet place. 

I use that time to first plan out my tasks of the day.  I like to get clear about what I want to accomplish today.  Then I take those tasks and apply them to my calendar.  I use my Pocket PC for my "Planning and solitude" time because I can easily convert between tasks and calendar entries.  Plus, I need alarms to keep me on track.  That repeating chime on the Pocket PC has a good way of nagging me into different actions when it’s time to shift gears.

More information about The Advanced Day Planner User’s Guide:  It was written in 1987 and is a bit dated,  but it has a few jewels of wisdom you can still apply today.  If you are interested, lots of people have eBay auctions with them listed for as low as .75 cents plus shipping. 

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