How do you start your Monday morning?  Are you the sort of person who gets into your office, logs onto email and then gets lost in whatever your in-box throws at you?  Maybe you intended to spend some time first thing sorting out your priorities, only you found that somebody noticed you were at your desk and decided to come and see you?   Perhaps you thought that you would get a cup of tea or coffee before you sat down and your time was hijacked that way?  If you don't like the results that you have been getting, then it is time to do something else.  The idea of spending just ten minutes at the start of your day, with no interruptions to plan, can potentially save you hours of wasted time today and every day that you do this. 

There are lots of books out there about time management with some great strategies (my personal favourite is 'Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy). I believe that simplicity wins over every time.  As I have said before, it is not really about managing time per se, it is about the choices that you make.  We all have the same amount of time, what you decide to do in that time will make the difference.  So with simplicity in mind, here are some ideas.  Set aside 10 minutes at the beginning and end of your working day.  As you can probably guess where interruptions or distractions might come from, plan around them.  If you have an office, shut the door, put a do not disturb sign up, switch off your PC's monitor and divert your phone, put your mobile on meeting - you know the score.   Once you have the space cleared then make a list of everything you have to do today.  Put everything down, no matter how small.  In the first pass of this list, decide who else can take care of some these things?  If they never got done, what would be the impact?  Now assign a priority to each one of them numbered 1 thru to 4.  1 = Absolute Priority  2 = Important but not an absolute priority 3 = Helps others more than me  4 = Makes no direct contribution to my objectives.  Once done, you need to keep it somewhere visible and of course your attention needs to focus on the 1's & 2's.  During the day, other things will come in and your priorities will change.  At the end of the day you need to protect that 10 minute window once more.  This time, you need to mark off the things that are complete.  Add new items and decide what will be carried over to the next day. 

If investing just 10 minutes at the start of each day saved you 2 hours of productive time would you do it?  Of course you would.  Make this a success habit to kick start every working day for you.  Remember the 20/80 rule.  20% of your tasks will give you 80% of your results.   What is in your 20% and what do you now need to focus on?  Be ruthless in the choices you make, that is what successful people do all the while.