The seventh habit in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is Sharpen Your Saw. It means complete care of your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health. Stephen Covey encourages regular upkeep to perform at your best. Yet, we let successful entrepreneurs push us to work more. But a single mother with three jobs shows you that this method doesn't work for everyone.

How to Start Planning?

Planning is described as the capacity to “think about the future” or mentally predict the best approach to carry out a task or achieve a specified goal. It might be tough to know where to begin when you have a mile-long “to do list” hanging in your thoughts. Planning is the first step toward success in this situation. Your mind is for generating ideas, not storing them. As a result, you must get your list out of your mind and onto something that will record your ideas for you. This might be done on paper, on your laptop, on your phone, or on sticky notes - depending on what works best for you. Make a full mental list of all you need to get done in a short amount of time or over a long period of time. Keep it in an easily accessible location, and make sure that there's a mechanism in place for reminders. Let’s get started on organizing now that you’ve made your list.

Where Should I Start?

The first step is to determine if the job is actionable. If yes, what's the initial step, as well as the subsequent ones that must be taken? This allows you to estimate how long it will take to accomplish the work. If there are things that can be completed in a short amount of time, you should complete them right away! Can you assign activities that may need more of your time and follow up with the individual until they are completed? Can the assignment be postponed till you have more time to do it?

In any case, keeping your list tidy and reviewing it on a regular basis is critical. Time management is one of the most crucial abilities to have in the office if you want to do your responsibilities on time. You must now prioritize your work after you've structured it.

What’s the Point of Prioritizing?

When you are assigned a job task, you make a commitment to perform that activity on time. It's crucial to prioritize critical tasks first. If you’re having trouble prioritizing your tasks, get assistance. Meeting a deadline indicates that you are a productive employee, which may have a good influence on your career or company.

Tips to Keep In Mind

• Planning should be done when you’re calm and focused.
• While having a goal in mind, divide larger projects and activities into smaller pieces.
• Schedule and secure undisturbed time in your calendar to work on the assignment or project.
• Reduce the distractions.
• Reflect on your tracking system of choice and make changes as appropriate.

This article is part of our Business Coaching blog series. At Dataczar we talk to a lot of small businesses. We’ve found a few books that we keep recommending time and again. To better help our customers, we’ve added a Reading List for Small Businesses to our website. We encourage every small business owner to read and keep these timeless business books on their office shelf.

 

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