The most successful people all have certain habits in their daily routines.
They help contribute to their success and can be considered good habits to form. It could be something simple like, setting a goal to, “Do good each day,” like Benjamin Franklin did.
It could also be something more elaborate such as spending most of your morning in bed like Winston Churchill. Churchill would wake up at 7:30am daily, eat breakfast, read his mail and newspaper until 11am.
1. PLAN YOUR DAY THE NIGHT BEFORE
Every minute spent in planning saves 10 minutes in execution. Sit down with a piece of paper and write down everything that you need to do the coming day. If for any reason you don’t do this, it should be the first thing you do every morning. When you write down a list you have a track to run on.
Writing down a list clarifies your thinking and goals…
Writing down a list forces you to think at a higher level…
If you start working from a list you increase you output 25% each day.
One of the habits of millionaires is that they start their day working from a list.
2. SET PRIORITIES ON YOUR LIST BEFORE YOU START THE DAY
Work from the 80/20 rule. If you have 10 items on your list of things to do, two will be the more important than all of the other items put together.
Go down your list and answer the question, “If I were to be called out of town for a month, what are the most important tasks that I must accomplish?”
Last fall I was out of the country traveling across 15 countries in 36 days. When I looked at my list of things to do before I left, I had to get my most important tasks done.
Once you identify these most important tasks, it brings us to the final step in starting your day.
3. COMPLETE THE MOST IMPORTANT TASK FIRST
Begin immediately on your most important task and focus on it and only it until completion.
All success in life comes from project completion and living a life of good habits will help you complete more projects.
A project with multiple tasks is called a “multi-task job”. This means that there are several smaller jobs to complete within the larger job. Organize your jobs by sequence in a checklist and start on you most important project. Complete the smaller jobs in you project, until the entire project is complete. This process is called “single handling” and it’s one of the most powerful things that you can use in managing your time. You can increase your productivity by 50% by planning, starting and completing your most important tasks every single day.
CONCLUSION
If you can develop these habits of successful people and do those three things, plan your day the night before, organize your tasks in order of importance, and complete your most important task first thing during your day. You will increase your productivity overnight.
What successful habits do you practice when you start your day? Leave a comment below.