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Daily Routines of Fortune 500 Leaders (and What You Can Learn from Them)
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Key Ideas
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Get an early start on the day
Early hours are important because they tend to be free of most distractions and give you an opportunity to get focused.
An early start will allow you to squeeze in more time for reflection, breakfast, exercise, and getting a jump-start on communication.
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Breakfast at Tiffany’s
- Balanced blood sugar levels, which helps maintain your energy throughout the day
- Improved short-term memory and mood
- Faster recovery and renewed energy after workouts
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Better use of the commute to work
Some of the ways you can be productive during your commute include:
- Catching up on podcasts or listening to business-related audio books
- Hands-free calling to get a head start on critical or time-sensitive issues
- Reading and responding to emails (for those who use public transit)
- Researching and preparing for presentations
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Eating the Frog
The first few hours after waking is the time when your brain is at its sharpest and you’re more likely to stay on task. That’s why you need to focus during early hours on the highest-priority items of your to-do list.
During that time, tackle important tasks and projects while holding off on emails, calls, and texts until lunchtime.
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The distractions of daily communication
Handle email and communication to stay productive:
- Be concise in every response to reduce the time spent on communication.
- If a response has the potential to require a discussion, make it a phone call instead.
- Schedule time for emails. Leaving the email open all day creates constant distractions.
- Only spend time on communication when it’s scheduled. Block out small windows throughout the day to respond.
- Hire a full-time or virtual assistant to handle your communications for you.
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Taking control of meetings
5 words to live by for your next meeting: "Short, focused, and standing up."
To kick things off and keep things on track, always provide an agenda in advance of the meeting.
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Creating structure with a winning team
Teamwork is essential in meeting productivity goals.
Team effort is important for any company with multiple employees to thrive, and it can significantly impact business strategies and productivity. The most effective leaders directly engage their teams and spend a good chunk of their time supporting employees and encouraging them to succeed.
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Taking time for personal projects
Maintaining some sense of work/life balance is crucial. Even the most successful Fortune 500 leaders and executives spend an average of an hour and 45 minutes each day on personal projects or tasks that are important to them, from gardening to gaming.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
6
Key Ideas
Practice Discipline
Billionaires are often highly disciplined and set extraordinarily high standards for themselves and the people around them. Of course, they have lazy and unmotivated days but they don’t allow thems...
Commit To Routines
Routines and rituals are sets of habits that, when practiced consistently, lead to profound, long-term results. Most billionaire routines start early in the day and include exercising, reading and contemplating.
It doesn’t matter when you do your routine activities. What counts is that you commit to doing them — even when you don’t feel like it.
Contemplate
Billionaires love setting aside alone time. .. To think. They might do this by meditating or some other relaxing activity they enjoy.
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Key Ideas
Family, Reflection and Email
Balancing work obligations with meaningful family time is an important part of building a successful evening routine.
An evening routine starts with family time. Tackle some to-do’s la...
Practice Good Sleep Hygiene
Take steps to make it easier to sleep well.
- Avoid caffeine, alcohol, or other drugs for several hours before bed
- Set a regular bedtime
- Drink some warm milk or herbal tea, or have a light snack
- Try a screen-free activity like meditation or reading
- Eliminate as much noise from your bedroom as possible
- Keep your bedroom dark
- Don’t linger too long in bed. It’s better to do your lounging on the couch and head for bed only when it’s time to sleep.
To Sleep Or Not To Sleep
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Key Ideas
Shockingly Unproductive
- Studies show that employees spend more than five hours per day reading and replying to emails. While it may seem like urgent work, email is not the best kind of work.
Facilitate Deep Work
A few smart strategies that can be deployed:
- Installing pods for deep work while having common areas for collaborative work.
- Wearing headphones that are easily seen to signal that you are not to be disturbed.
- Turning your office into a library, following the same culture of quietness where everyone is hushed and respectful.
Email is not Real Work
Real work, by definition, should be rare, valuable and cognitively demanding.
Email does not check any of these boxes, and is, therefore, a pseudo work.