What Did You Do Last Week?
Anyone who has participated in one of my workshops or coaching sessions knows that I recommend reflecting and planning at the end of each day. It’s a short ritual – five to ten minutes – during which you give yourself credit for what you’ve accomplished, then examine which next steps to take the following day based on the company’s mission, your department’s current initiative, your job responsibilities and current project priorities.
Most people understand the planning part, but don’t quite understand why reflecting is so important. So, here are five reasons why you should include reflection and acknowledgement of your wins at the end of each day:
- Stay positive – Most people focus on what they didn’t accomplish. When that’s your primary focus, your brain will tend to live in negative emotions, which will slow down your productivity. By starting your reflection first with your wins, you’ll train your brain to lean toward the positive.
- Motivation – As adults, we’re expected to be motivated from within. But if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed from everything you need to do, it can be hard to muddle through that mental clutter and stay motivated. When you acknowledge your accomplishments, you’ll get that boost to help you with motivation.
- Clarity for prioritization – When you pause to check a task on your list and pat yourself on the back, chances are you’re thinking about which step you’ve just completed within a larger task or project. When you approach your wins list this way, it will help you stay focused on the larger objective, which will aid you in prioritizing more quickly when unexpected requests come your way.
- Updated team – When your task lists are kept within a platform that your supervisor and team members have access to, your co-workers will always know the status of your work. If you have to call in sick, they know where your work stands. Additionally, an asynchronous tool to track status can help cut back on check-in emails and meetings.
- Documentation for performance evaluations – If you’ve ever waited until a few hours before your evaluation to attempt to recall everything you’ve accomplished in the previous quarter or year, you know it can be taxing on the brain and time consuming. If, instead, you record your daily or weekly accomplishments, you’ll have your documentation ready to go. Or if Elon Musk, DOGE or OPM asks for five bullet points summarizing what you did last week, you’ll just need two seconds to copy and paste.
For more tips on how to work more efficiently and effectively, check out The Inefficiency Assassin: Time Management Tactics for Working Smarter, Not Longer.
