Your best time

I did a seminar on “Streamline Your Time with Outlook” yesterday at Darden. I saw light bulbs go on when we talked about their best time of day. Many don’t pay attention to it, yet it is a simple, powerful approach to making progress toward your goals.

When is your best time of day? When are you your sharpest, clearest, brightest? What are you typically doing during your best time of day? I hope you’re not wasting it on mundane work. Use it to focus on something important to your growth and your career. Try this: block time on your calendar for your best time of day at least twice a week for the next month. By Memorial Day, you will have made progress toward something important to your success! And you will have created a new habit.

I gave the seminar participants an example of someone I used to work with. He realized his best time of day for reading and digesting new material, industry mags and reports was right after lunch. We thought he was closing his door to take a quick nap. But within weeks of closing his door almost every day for one-half hour after lunch, he was a different person in staff meetings. He had new ideas, was up to speed on the competition, knew what was happening in our industry, and had more energy about his job. All because he was tackling the pile of reading material he never had time for, yet knew his future success hinged on it.

Dedicate time, even a few minutes, during your best time of day to work on something you really want to accomplish.