Rules for planning the beginning, middle and end of the working day

The work is spent as much time as it is available, or any work is performed within the allotted time. These principles and rules of working day planning are psychologically justified and have proven themselves in different life situations.

Management specialists are aware of such a pattern: as much time is spent on work as it is available, that is, any work is performed during the time allotted for it.

The principles and rules of working day planning that we offer to your attention are not mandatory. Many of them may seem frivolous to you. However, they are psychologically justified and have proven themselves in various life situations. It is not necessary to use all the principles. Try to apply each of them, find your own style — it will be the best for you.

So, the organization of working hours should correspond to the basic principle: "Work should obey me, and not vice versa." The rules for planning a working day can be divided into three groups:

rules for the beginning of the day;

mid-day rules;

rules for the end of the day.

Rules for the beginning of the day

1. Start the day with a positive mood. Try to find some positive start for each day, because the attitude with which you will start solving the upcoming tasks is important for achieving success. Ask yourself three questions every morning:

How can this day bring me closer to achieving my goals?

What should I do to get as much joy from it as possible?

What can I do today to preserve my lifestyle (to support my health)?

Creating a positive attitude usually does not take more than two minutes. Give yourself these two minutes before starting the "standard morning program".

2. Have a good breakfast and go to work without haste. Without getting enough sleep, without breakfast, as soon as possible to work — such a start can simply ruin the day! Don't say that you don't have time for a leisurely breakfast, because it's a matter of setting priorities (in order to get enough sleep and have a good breakfast, you just need to go to bed earlier).

3. Start working at the same time. This is an element of self-discipline that contributes to the mobilization of forces.

4. Double-check the plans of the day. Use the ABC analysis method or the Eisenhower principle. It is established that a ten-minute preparation for a working day allows you to save up to two hours of working time. So win these two hours! In addition, when making a working day plan, keep in mind the following rule: you need to plan no more than 60% of your time, and 40% is a reserve fund for unexpected and urgent cases.

5. Get down to business without swinging. You should categorically abandon such a "morning ritual" as reusable greetings, lengthy discussions of the latest news, etc.Social contacts are, of course, necessary, and you are not a robot. However, they can be moved to less stressful times, for example, lunch and afternoon.

6. First, the key tasks. You should start the working day with the tasks of group A, all other things can wait. It is not necessary to look through correspondence first of all — in incoming business mail, it is rarely about matters that have the highest priority and must be completed immediately.

7. Coordinate the plan of the day with the secretary. The secretary, if you have one, is your most important partner when it comes to creating optimal conditions for activity. You should devote the first time of the working day to him, even if it is a couple of minutes. The secretary should be aware of your affairs. Coordinate with him all the deadlines, priorities and plans of the day. A good secretary doubles the efficiency of his boss's work, and a bad one reduces it by half.

Rules for planning the middle of the day

1. Prepare your desk for work. Remove from the table all the papers that are unnecessary for solving the tasks of group A. No more than six documents should be on the desktop at the same time. This is psychologically justified: firstly, extra papers consume time, and secondly, the order on the table stimulates the order in thoughts.

2. Set deadlines. Sometimes tasks are assigned to you, because you are also someone's subordinate. So, the deadlines set for solving the problem are very often accepted unconditionally, even if they do not fit well into your plans. And we must try to adapt them to our interests and "bargain for time". In short, ask for twice as much time as is necessary to solve this task; it often turns out easier than you think. As for assigning tasks to subordinates, I advise you to give them about a third less time than, in your opinion, it is necessary to solve the problem. If this is enough, you will save time, if not, you will still not lose.

3. Avoid actions that cause a backlash. Many managers tend to engage in more and more new things, problems and ideas, and thereby cause an appropriate reaction to their actions, and it can have an impact on the time schedule. For example, very often, having participated once (out of pure interest) in a meeting, the manager receives additional responsibilities that are not provided for in his plan. He may be assigned something, included in the working group, etc. Therefore, it is best to double-check all actions (letters, telephone conversations, coordination of deadlines, etc.) from the point of view of their necessity and the danger of a response.

4. Reject additional urgent problems that arise. At each enterprise, in each division, various kinds of urgent circumstances or unforeseen situations arise. It should be remembered that the distraction of the so-called urgent circumstances leads to the temporary oblivion of the planned important cases. Whether it is worth doing this-decide on a case-by-case basis, depending on the circumstances.

5. Avoid unplanned impulsive actions. As a rule, an impulsive deviation from a drawn-up plan reduces productivity. So, if you want to do something during work (for example, make a phone call), think about whether it is worth doing it.

6. Take timely pauses. Short breaks in work are certainly necessary, their frequency and duration are individual. The main thing is to do them regularly.

7. Group small homogeneous tasks and perform them in series. Deal with routine work and small things by combining homogeneous tasks into work blocks. Six blocks of 10 minutes for phone calls, brief meetings take, paradoxically, more time than one block of 60 minutes. Why? Because you make the appropriate preparation for a homogeneous activity six times. So group homogeneous cases into blocks, but do not make them too long (preferably 30-60 minutes).

8. Rationally finish what you started. Avoid jumps in the work and always try to finish the job you started. Distraction from the main work consumes time, because when you return to it, you have to repeat what you have already done once.

9. Use time intervals. Do not leave unplanned time intervals unfilled (for example, waiting in the boss's waiting room, a useless meeting that you have to attend). When they appear, ask yourself the question: "How can I use these minutes to the maximum benefit?"

10. Carve out a quiet hour (time for yourself). The daily reservation of one quiet, or closed, hour, during which no one can interfere with you, has proven itself well. This is a time of unbroken concentration. Put it in the plan, it will significantly increase the productivity of your work. Isolate yourself from the outside world for this time, either with the help of a secretary, or simply close the door, having previously warned that you are not in place. Use the closed hour for important, but not urgent matters that are of a long-term nature, or for those tasks that are lost in the hustle and bustle of the day.

11. Control deadlines and plans. During meetings and other activities, in accordance with the Pareto principle, often 80% of decisions are made in 20% of the time. Track your time and do not spare it for rechecking plans in terms of changing priorities.

Rules for the end of the working day

1. Complete the unfinished work. All the small things started (viewing correspondence, dictation of letters and notes) try to complete it within one day. A delay in their implementation can lead to additional labor costs when you have to eliminate the "blockage".

2. Monitoring of results and self-control. Without control and self-control, the organization of labor is unthinkable. We will talk about control in more detail in one of the following articles. In the meantime, I will limit myself to saying that comparing what is planned with what has been completed and analyzing deviations from plans is an indispensable condition for normal work.

3. Plan for the next day. It is best to make a plan for the next day the night before. It goes without saying that this does not cancel its mandatory recheck in the morning.