This blog post on How to Create a Meaningful Morning Routine led me to reflect on a routine I created to act as an anchor, or point of reference for my business day, that I can use at any point of the day, no matter how I feel or how my day changes. I like to keep my routines flexible so I can be available for clients, my children, and for occasional “on call work”. These are the key priorities that I want to have flexibility to fit into my days with short notice if necessary. By creating a list of daily business activities, that I want to attend to every day, I am able to access this flexibility and still attend to the commitments that are necessary for the running of my business. Here is my daily task list for when I sit down at my desk, no matter what time that may be each day – early morning, mid morning, afternoon or evening. It focuses me and makes whatever time I have available productive.

• Current initiative: this is an activity I want to focus on first each day, before I log into any programs on my computer, or attend to anything else. It can be an activity I have been procrastinating on, one that I am finding hard to create space for, or something that I want to become a new habit, a regular part of my day. The intention is to spend a minimum of 20 min on this activity first thing each day, before I do anything else. For me this is currently practicing my typing as I want to learn how to touch type properly.
• Clear and reply to emails that need attention from yesterday.
• Attend to any voice or text messages from yesterday.
• Attend to any paper (letters/ receipts) or accounting tasks filed from yesterday
• Creativity – I spend up to an hour on writing – my blog, working on tools and workshop programs.
• Then I start to work with a closed task list in whatever remaining time I have available – tasks that I have identified from yesterday and previous days that I want to complete that were not urgent.

What activities would you choose to include in your daily task list? If you want to explore how you could implement a meaningful routine in your day, to support you to become more productive call/ text Heather on 0212 406 535 or email heather@inspirationscoach.co.nz.