How is your day going?
Or rather, where is your day going? Have you ever looked up at the clock and wondered where half the day went? Ever wondered how you let it get so hijacked?
Peter Bregman of HarvardBusiness.org suggests that ritual can help us overcome the time-killing fires and distractions that always seem to come up and consume our day:
Managing our time needs to become a ritual too. Not simply a list or a vague sense of our priorities. That’s not consistent or deliberate. It needs to be an ongoing process we follow no matter what to keep us focused on our priorities throughout the day.
Find out what those three steps are on HarvardBusiness.org.
If you need a role model, look no further than Benjamin Franklin. His daily schedule shows a healthy measure of ritual. According to his own accounts, he rose early every day, and spent no less than three hours to “rise, wash, and address Powerful Goodness; contrive day’s business and take the resolution of the day, prosecute the present study; and breakfast.” Then, every evening, he would review the day: “put things in their places, supper, music, or diversion, or conversation; examination of the day”.
Mr. Franklin probably spent fewer hours working than most of us. And yet he is remembered as one of the most influential and effective people of all time.
Benjamin Franklin's Daily Schedule
