What Did You Do Today?

For consultants, sales professionals, partners and other highly compensated executives like yourself, you must have a clearly defined set of objectives you wish to complete by the end of the day in order to remain at the top in your field. Every day, over time, makes up a life time of frivolous activities, or a life time of accomplishing great goals.

The choices you make on a day-to-day basis determine your success or your failure in life.

Often, we go into the office or start the day from our hotel room, without a plan, without a set of objectives we wish to accomplish before 5PM rolls around. Now I say 5PM, knowing my day ends often after 7PM, and I assume your days do too. But the critical things we have to get done, like completing the proposal for a client, setting up our appointments with clients, or completing some project for a client, needs to be done before 5PM, largely because we are dependent on others in the office or others who do not have the same work ethic as us.

But we must decide BEFORE the day starts out, what it is we wish to achieve today. So every morning ask yourself; "What 5 to 10 items on are list of things to do today, will advance us to our success?"

This is the question you must ask at the beginning of the day. This question will focus your energies on the things that matter.

As series of questions that will help you stay on track, that you can ask at key points of the day are important as well.

The question you must ask at 12 noon is this; "Did I accomplish this morning what I intended to accomplish for the day yet?" And, "Did I even start on these?"

Asking these questions at the mid-point of the day will light a fire in your belly. Often we are at the mercy of everyone else's demands. We are doing meaningless tasks that suck up time and zap us of our energy. That is the real danger here. We feel like we are working, yet in reality we are slaves to the agendas of others. We take on tasks that are meaningless to our success. Soon, after months of doing someone else's work, we find ourselves behind the proverbial eight ball and scrambling to get back on track.

The 3PM question is to ask the same question as you did at 12 noon. This allows you to knock all the stuff that doesn't matter off your desk and laptop and focuses you on the results you need to accomplish.

So at 5PM, you have to ask yourself; "Did I accomplish the thing I set out to do today?"

The key times to focus on your list of things to be done are;

1. Before you start your day (preferably before 7AM and before you touch email!!!!)
2. A gut check at 12 Noon. This will provide you an hour of uninterrupted time if you have to catch up.
3. Another gut check at 3PM. This allows you to clear the deck and man the battle stations for two hours in order to catch up.
4. At 5PM - to review your list of objectives and see where you fell down or what obstacles got in your way today. And then taking the items off your today's "To Do List" and carry them over to tomorrow's "To Do List."

When you have this kind of focus, the results you will achieve will be tremendous in a short period of time. And your energy levels will skyrocket!

Good Luck! Joe