Is your work routine working for you?

Welcome to a brand new, shiny year. Ah, the possibilities! For many of us today marks the first day in the new year that we get back to our work routines. This is a good day to take a look at those routines and decide if they are working as well for us as possible.Yes, routines offer comfort but, more importantly, they are important  tools for those of us who work from home. We can use routines to promote productivity, focus on the important, and accomplish more in less time which, in turn, frees us up to participate in endeavors other than work that are important to us.  So here are a few hints to use when evaluating your current work routine.

• Identify what is already working well for you. If it "ain't" broke, don't fix it.

• If you can, identify what is NOT working well for you. Try something new here.

• Identify your high energy time of day and plan your most crucial or difficult tasks for this period. This is especially important if you work in a creative field.

• Early in your work week, acknowledge what you want or need to accomplish before the week is over. Then make sure each of these tasks is spaced throughout your week evenly. 

• Keep it simple. Focus on the very important concepts, rather than the minutia that expand to fill all the time you'll allow it. Who among us hasn't gotten to the end of a particularly busy week but, looking back, couldn't see what was actually accomplished?

• Borrow the concept of the "editorial calendar" from our writing cohorts. Use your calendar to write down the main topic/task of each day or to pencil in routine work related activities. (PR on Thursday afternoons, client calls on Tuesday mornings or accounting on Friday afternoons, for examples)

• Don't over-schedule yourself. I'm guilty of underestimating the amount of time a project will take. Consequently, my main tweak starting today is to be more realistic about completion times and to build in even additional time for interruptions.

• Once you have a routine, write it down. At first, you'll need to refer to your written routine, but as you fine-tune it, and it begins to work well for you, it'll become second nature.

I don't know who said "plan your work, then work your plan" but the best written work routine on the planet isn't any good if you don't sit down and DO it. Self discipline is the key to success. 

At the end of your work week, take a couple of minutes for an honest evaluation. If your routine worked well, congratulations! But if there were stumbling blocks, try to tweak your work routine for next week to address the issue.

Let's all have a Happy New Year!