Brian Tracy gives concise, actionable advice for structuring a productive day: plan daily (preferably the night before or first thing in the morning) and write a checklist; apply the 80/20 (or 90/10) rule to prioritize; identify the single most important task and single-handle it until completion. He claims measurable gains from these habits (e.g., 25% productivity increase the first day from working from a list; 50% increase from starting and completing the most important task) and offers a brief personal travel example to motivate prioritization.
Questions this video answers
25% increase in productivity and output the first day.
50% increase in productivity.
Every minute spent in planning saves 10 minutes in execution.
15 countries over 36 days.
Chapters
Here's some ideas on how to structure your day for maximum productivity, performance and output. Benny from Facebook recently asked me, how do you structure your day? So here are some tips to help you structure your day to be more productive and successful. Number one, every minute spent in planning saves 10 minutes in execution or getting the job done. So the most important thing you can do is plan. Plan your day, preferably the night before. Sit down with a piece of paper and write down everything that you have to do the coming day. It should be the last thing you do at the end of the day. Now, if for any reason you don't do this, then the first thing you do in the morning before you check your email, your phone calls, newspapers. First thing you do in the morning is make a list of everything that you have to do that day. Once you have a list, you have a track to run on. Writing down a list clarifies your thinking. Writing down a list forces you to think at a higher level. If you start working from a list, you increase your productivity and output by 25% the first day. All successful people work from lists and all successful people with regard to their projects were from checklists. A checklist is a list of everything organized in sequence and you go down the checklist. Now the second way that you can organize your day is to set priorities on your list before you begin. Don't just rush into it. Look over the list and apply the 8020 rule. If you have 10 items to do on your list, two will be more valuable than the other eight put together. Sometimes it's the 9010 rule. If you have 10 items on your list, one will be important, more important than all the others put together. Go down your list and ask yourself this question. If I could only do one thing on this list before I was called out of town for a month, what one task would I want to be sure to complete? Now in my life, I'm called out of town for a week, two weeks, three weeks, sometimes a month, all the time. Last fall I was out of town and traveling in 15 countries over 36 days. So I have to look at my work list before I go and I have to get my most important tasks done. So once you identify this task, this leads to the next way to organize your day is begin immediately on your most important task and then stay with it until it's complete. All of success in life comes from project completion. It comes from taking jobs. And a project is called a multi task job. It means there's several little jobs within the larger job and what you do is you organize your projects by sequence the checklist, and then you start on your most important project and then you stay with that project until it's complete. This process is called single handling. It's the most powerful success strategy that you can use in managing your time. You can actually increase your productivity by 50% by simply starting and completing your most important task first thing every day. So if you can do those three things, start with a list, organize the list by priority, and then start on and complete your most important task, you can double and triple your productivity, sometimes almost overnight. Thanks for listening. This is Brian Tracy on Success Talk. Did you like this episode? Make sure to subscribe for the next one and tell a friend about it. For exclusive content on sales, training, leadership, business and personal success, visit me@Brian Tracy.com and while you're there, sign up for my newsletter. Until next time, do the things today that will lead to the life that you desire tomorrow.
