Get the most out of your day!

One the eve before our first dedicated careers day at Oxbridge Tutorial College I've been in a reflective mood.

The whole school has been working hard over the past few weeks to make sure that the day is as productive and enjoyable as possible for the students and other participants. The guests have all confirmed they're participation, catering is in place, the rooms are all set up.

To help prepare the students I've googled some tips on how to make the most of your day. A lot of these tips apply to many areas in life so even if you're not a student at Oxbridge read on and see how you could apply them. Should you follow them all as if they were a step-by-step guide? Not at all. Take the tips that will apply to you, and give them a shot.

1. Purpose your day. This is my most important rule. I start out each day by listing the three things I most want to accomplish today. What do you want to achieve at the careers day?

2. Start off great. Create a morning routine that will allow you to greet the day and get off to a great start. Your morning routine will vary from mine, but the important thing is to think about how you can create the best start to your day. Design your morning. And then try to make it a routine. Some ideas could be exercise, eating a healthy breakfast, enjoying the sunrise, doing meditation or prayer, doing some writing, or getting an important task done.

3. Focus on a goal. Another important thing to do is to focus on your current main goal. I don’t mean your goal for today, but your goal for this year (or some other longer-term period). The mistake a lot of people make is having too many goals, which spreads their focus and effectiveness. I’ve found that having just one goal at a time makes you much more effective and much more likely to accomplish it. The other mistake people make is not focusing on that goal (or goals) each day. Make it a part of your morning routine to decide what you’re going to do today to further your One Goal.

4. Make an appointment with yourself. When we schedule a meeting with someone else, most of us block that time off so that no other tasks can interrupt it. That’s a sacred block of time that cannot be violated by a bunch of other things. Well, do the same thing for yourself. Schedule a block of time (preferrably in the morning, before things get crazy) when you’re going to do one of your Most Important Tasks, or a task to further your One Goal. Then don’t allow that appointment to be violated by anything else.

5. Avoid interruptions. When you need to get something done, shut off email, don’t take phone calls, and don’t allow others to drop in on you for impromptu meetings. This applies to when you make an appointment with yourself (see the above tip), but also at other times of the day when you’re trying to get work done.

6. Focus on the important. We have a tendency to try to tackle all the tasks that come our way, or all the tasks on our to-do lists, or all the requests that come in via email. It’s not possible, first of all, to get everything done that comes our way, and second, that’s probably not how we want to spend our day. It’s crucial that you identify the most important tasks and projects, the ones that will give you the most long-term benefit, and focus on those. Setting three MITs for today (see Tip 1) is one way to do that, of course, but this tip is really a change in mindset: identify the most important things, and forget about the unimportant. Sure, you won’t get everything done, but you will get the important stuff done, and that is a huge difference.

7. Review your day. At the end of every day, spend a few minutes looking back on what you did, what went wrong, what you can improve on, and what you will do differently. Review your One Goal, and the progress (or lack thereof) you’ve made on it. No day is perfect, but you should learn from mistakes and celebrate successes. A journal would be a great way to capitalize best on this daily review.

Good luck tomorrow!

For the full article go to http://freelanceswitch.com/freelancing-essentials/10-easy-ways-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-day/