Schedule your key priorities first

You’ve gotten away for a bit and identified some key priorities, including spending more time with family, regularly getting exercise, and getting coaching each week.

But when you come back, you hit reality—271 emails your inbox, 11 meetings to attend in the next week, 2 unexpected projects to complete by Wednesday. You have to deal with reality, so you respond to your email, attend the meetings, and complete the projects—only to find that while you have spent more time with family, you haven’t gotten any exercise or coaching.

This doesn’t feel good.

What can you do? Schedule time each week for each of your key priorities first. Then schedule time for your email, meetings, and projects. In other words, don’t schedule time for email before you schedule time for getting coaching and getting exercise.

Discipline yourself to do this. Doing this will help you stay focused on your key priorities.