How to Determine Your Week’s Most Productive Hour

When you own your own company, you may have the luxury of deciding when you will work, but for those who are accustomed to following someone else’s schedule, it may be tough to understand when and how to concentrate on critical tasks. Furthermore, with staff and meetings throughout the typical workday, a productive, uninterrupted hour of work may be difficult to come by.

First and foremost, you must make the time to crack down. Try making one hour of your day your most productive hour. One hour isn’t a lot of time, but if you convince yourself that you’ll be most productive in 60 minutes, you may deceive yourself into working hard to get things done. If your typical workday is stressful, consider getting up an hour earlier or working an additional hour at the end of the day. If that isn’t feasible, consider arranging a meeting with yourself on your work calendar to keep that block of time open and to notify your staff that you will not be interrupted. You may also take use of your lunch break.

After you’ve set aside that hour, you’ll need to make the most of it. If you don’t want to work on tasks throughout the workday, try spending that hour for the following:

1. Pondering the larger picture. Make a list of the goals you want your company to achieve in the following month, six months, year, or even longer. By outlining your targeted outcomes, you can then assess whether you are on course to achieve them.

2. Making the decision to delegate. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the number of work you have on your plate, spend that hour to consider which ones you can outsource to another employee or an outside contractor. If you are unsure about delegating a work that is nearing a deadline, consider the value of devoting time to training an employee to handle that sort of assignment to save you time and headaches later on. It’s like the old saying “Feed a man a fish…” vs. “Teach a guy to fish…”

3. Work on your flaws. Consider what you do for a job and select one aspect of your skill set that you may enhance to boost your marketability. Are you a lawyer who has little expertise with the tax aspects of trusts? Are you a graphic designer with a limited collection of vectored drawings? Devote that hour to really improving your weak point, and you’ll be a more well-rounded and marketable person in no time!