What’s Your Routine?

To be effective and productive, having consistent habits and routines is essential. Just like athletes have a routine of doing basic stretches before getting onto the track, we all must have a routine that prepares us to be productive at work every day.

When I recently suggested this to a young colleague, he asked me to share an example of a new habit or routine I have adopted to help me be more productive. The question caught me off guard because I was not expecting him to ask me about a specific example. However, after thinking for a few seconds, I gave him one tangible example of a new habit I have developed recently.

At the beginning of the day, faced with an overflowing inbox and a flurry of WhatsApp messages, I had a habit of “clearing the decks” by responding to emails and scrolling through messages. My reasoning for doing this was to clear my backlog so that I could focus better on the other creative tasks. The challenge with this approach was that I spent the best part of my day dealing with mundane tasks.

A recent change I made in my daily working habit was to switch to working on the creative work early in the day before doing anything else and then working on the reactive work, like responding to emails, much later in the day. For me, working on creative work means blocking off a large chunk of time without getting distracted by emails and phone calls every morning to focus on my goals, writing new proposals, tracking market trends, and solving problems.

Ever since I made this one change, my productivity has skyrocketed since I get real value-added work done early in the day when my energy is high and my focus is sharp.

What is the routine you have to make your day productive?