CLIP's Tips

Effective management (of a business, life, or even a garden) is boring.  I say this for two reasons:

1.  Consistently doing the right things is a major factor in accomplishing your goals.

2.  Most people consider that doing the same things, the same way, day after day is boring.

While I sincerely believe that our work can and should be meaningful, fulfilling, and fun, I have also learned that “boring” routines are imperative for productivity in work and life.  Without routines, important responsibilities are left undone, commitments are broken and stress-free control over our lives is sacrificed.

Routines can take many forms.  You probably already have many routines established in your life.  Think about what you do after you wake up every day.  Most of us have some kind of pattern that we follow everyday after we wake (i.e. stumble into the shower, put on a pot of coffee, feed the dog, etc.).  These kinds of routines often fall into place without much effort on our part because of the external pressure to get them done.  For example, your brain doesn’t function until you get your coffee, or the dog is whines your ears off until you feed her.

Take more effort to think about and establish routines for responsibilities that are easily forgotten or ignored if a reminder is not set in place.  Here is an example of my morning routine at work:

Trying to remember to do all of these items everyday without a written routine, would be impossible.

Having this list in place benefits me in several ways:

• By reviewing all of my inboxes daily, I am able to make better decisions about my priorities. If I did not review them, there might be something sitting there that I didn’t know about that would be important for today.
• By reviewing my Calendar (usually about a week out) I am reminded of any appointments I have for that day and/or of things that I need to prepare for appointments on upcoming days.
• By reviewing my entire action lists (to-do lists) I am able to pick out the things that are most important rather than just “flying by the seat of my pants.”
• I am reminded to do things that are important but may not be staring me in the face (i.e. think about business growth goal and how I can move toward it today)

While they may sometimes be boring, I am sure that if you apply this principle, your life and work will be better off for it.

Application Action: Create a daily routine.

Suggestions for creation:

• Brainstorm ALL of the responsibilities that you need to perform daily.
• Write it down.  Don’t trust your brain to remember the routine.
• Test it for a week, see how it goes and change it at the end of the week if necessary.
• Stick with it.  This is the important part and sometimes, the boring part.  Oftentimes, when you least feel like doing it is when you most should do it.
• Add or remove items as necessary.
• Create routines for wherever you have things you would like to get done consistently(exercise, end of day, school, etc.).

Let me know how this works for you in the comments.