Month: September 2017

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Planning Your Day

What’s the first thing you do when you start your day?

I’m not talking about your breakfast, shower or even morning workout. I’m talking about your day of work.

Do you get to work and just dive right in? That might feel like the right thing to do — jump right into what you need to do and get the ball rolling. However, that approach doesn’t allow for much  vision. Until recently I would just log on, check my email, read the news and just open some analysis I was working on without really setting any plan for my day. It’s easy to skip a plan in a day and age when there are a million things that will likely derail the plan even if you make it. Don’t let that fact fool you. Making the plan still helps by providing clarity and accountability which helps you say no to things that aren’t priorities.

Here at Elite we are all about setting big goals and living dreams rather than just dreaming them. In order to make progress, you need to be aware of these goals and then further you need to chunk them out into smaller bites. If the goal is to finish a painting in the next month, it helps to have an idea of what parts of the painting process need to be done by which deadlines. No matter how big your goal is or how long the time-horizon is, breaking it down day-by-day will provide you with a better chance of success.

Take some time to plan out your day, so that you can live a lifetime according to your plan.

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Setting Clear Expectations

Expectations.

They come from others, they come from yourself and overall they can be very stress-inducing.

 

It’s understandable why they result in stress. Stress is a natural response that drives action. Correctly set expectations help drive behavior in order to accomplish goals. So, expectations are a vital part of any goal or relationship so that the parties involved are able to communicate and understand the future.

With that being said, expectations can also cause a destructive form of stress. This occurs when the expectations are not clear. Without a benchmark, how can you measure success? There is no way to assess your progress or understand your priorities. Without clear expectations, people begin to expect too much of themselves or others and relationships (both internal and external) are put at risk, while progress towards goals takes a hit.

 

This is something we are focused on as a team here at Elite. Here’s what we’ve learned over the course of our Summer ’17 community projects.

 

  • Clarity drives accountability
    • It’s easier to make excuses when you leave yourself grey area.
    • You are more inclined to accomplish a task when your team knows what you’re working on.
  • People know what to expect
    • You won’t surprise them for the worse
    • Efforts that go above and beyond will be noticed more
  • Prioritization and planning are improved
    • It makes it easier to decide what to do next
    • You can decide whether or not you have enough time to commit to the task

 

So take the extra time, whether with your own life or your team, and make sure you’re setting clear expectations.