What's the one thing that truly moves the needle in your work? Is it your relationships with other team members or employees, is it the stretch goal that you set at the start of each year. Whatever it may be, there's a good chance that you're not working on it every single day because work is hectic at the best of times. There's always fires to put out, unexpected crises to mitigate, and of course the normal workload you need
to complete just to keep the lights on. When chef, author and TV personality Gary Meaghan hired a business coach, the first thing he was instructed to do was to shift his focus onto those needle movers, and the best way to do that, he learned, was with a daily one page journaling exercise. My name is doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work a show
about how to help you do your best work. On today is my Favorite Tip episode, we go back to an interview from the past and I pick out my favorite tip from that interview, and in today's show, I speak with Gary about the best tool he got from his business coach back when he first started in the restaurant business.
It's one of the best tools that I think I got, and it was a simple one pager. It's a little bit of self analysis, I suppose, and a quick reset for the following day. So at the end of the night, go home, have a cup of tea, and for a restaurant tour that's one o'clock in the morning often, but go home, have a cup of tea, just you know, gather your thoughts and kind of really answer a certain number of questions and set a certain number of goals for the following day. And when we say goals, i'm
talking big ones. I'm talking little ones, so details within the business, so it could be you know, how was I you know, what was the day like? How was I How do you think I was perceived by the other staff members? You know, was there anything that was on my mind that you know, I probably reacted badly too,
or that I reacted really well to. So I sent in a sense the first few lines and very quick with just a diary, and the second one, the second and third I actually I shouldn't number them because I won't be able to keep up with the numbers. But it was essentially, you know, what do I need to achieve tomorrow? You know one of my goals tomorrow? What a short term, long term? What's the one thing I can do up and above while I do every single
day that's going to make a difference. And they're actually really hard to fill in because you find that every day you're own the same bloody thing down. You know, I must do this, must I don't know. I must get in touch with Telster and renegotiate my you know, my facility, or get in touch with the bank. And you know, it's lots of things that you can write down.
And of course most business people are so busy putting out fires, you know, and dealing with the every day that you just keep writing the same things down over and over again. But it's a really good exercise in just trying to keep me honest and to try and keep your focused because you go, oh my god, if I read that one line again, I am going to
shoot myself, you know. But also to touch points with stuff, So who am I going to talk to, Who am I going to spend time with, Who I'm going to teach, and who I'm going to who I'm going to set goals for so that I can follow those up. So then the following day, obviously in the morning, cut the tea, coffee or whatever it is, have a quick read of your summary, and then crack into the day and at
night do exactly the same thing. And the hardest thing is actually just keeping momentum up on that simple one page, because what it does, quite obviously is expose your weaknesses. So you didn't spend time with job you know that day, or you didn't spend time with Sarah that day, and that you didn't set the goals, and that you know, it could be the first person I used to remember.
I used to walk in every day and see Barbara, who was the barista, and I must say to her, you know, any coffee, if you think you're going to sell to day, you know what do you reckon? Your opportunities could be And they have big questions for Barbara, she doesn't really want to get too stuck into it. But once you start, you know, once you can turn around and goes you know what, I sold one hundred and fifty yesterday for lunch, or I sold three hundred
yesterday between you know, ten and twelve. Then now we're starting to cotton onto something that we're onto something good and that now now Barbara's cripped into you know, the same goals as you've got, which could be coffee, or it could be something completely different. It could be gathering information from your customers. Hey, where are you from? I've seen you three times already. I'm in the business next door, fantastic,
what's business name? So then when i've you know, then have a chance to speak to them, I go, so, where where did you Where did you pick up new business from today? Or where did you notice your regulars were coming from? And that becomes kind of crucial information and without that go to piece of paper. And so when I got lazy and didn't do it, I found that my performance chopped off, and then my direction dropped off, and other people's performance and directions dropped off too.
How long would you spend at the end of the day completing this one page out ten.
Minutes at the most. It's a cup of tea's worth of variety, really, and it can, and to be honest, even a few lines make all the difference. And actually, since that point I always it was one of the first tools that would pass on to any new manager, I'd like you to do this because it's in line with what I do. So you know, how are you? It could be simply how are you? How did you go today? How you perceive by the stuff? You know? What short term and long term goal do you want
to achieve tomorrow or set in motion tomorrow? What one thing can I do up and above what I normally do? And that one thing could be just tiny. It doesn't have to be. You know, we tend to think about goals as being you know, they're big things that get reviewed once a year in an annual appraisal, that mean nothing. But there are lots of tiny things that go together
to make a big thing, you know. And I'd say almost that who am I going to spend time within the business today is probably singly the one of the most important things on that piece of paper, because what you find is that, you know, you can get a whole month and forget to talk to somebody or forget to touch base with them and do whatever you need to do, Whereas if you're doing that, you're actually sitting down just thinking and going you know what, I have
not spoken to Saundra, you know for two weeks. I need a need and it's not a sit down cup of coffee. That's the difference. I think all I tend to have a rule of everything's on the move, All meetings are on foot. So it's not a sit come on, let's go sit down. It's not one of those. It's like, hey, hey, you you know, what's going on? What happened yesterday? Or what what's on your mind? Or you know, have you
thought about this thing? Or you know, can you come up with an idea for you know, it could be, for example, that you've got salmon trimmings left over in the kitchen and you've asked, you know, Tony to come up with an idea. Now you've got to follow him up. You know, can you find something to do with those samon trimmings? Yeah, sure, chef, no problem. You know, just
one idea, let's get in on as a special. You know, it could be a pastor, it could be a terrain, and it could be a you know, it could be a rear of salmon with a little toast. He goes, oh, yeah, they good idea. We'll come up with an idea. Let's chup it on the menu. If you don't follow Tony up, Tony will never give you that dish. You know, you'll just go always forgotten, thank God, because it didn't come up with an idea. Or when home I had two
beers for sleep in front of TV. Whereas if the following day you come in and you say, hey, Tony, what can we do with those salmonataries? What special can we check on thing? He goes, oh, Chef, sorry, when home had two beers full in front of TV. That's allright, don't worry about it. See if you can come up with it tomorrow and we'll chuck it on the menu.
I'll give you some help, and all of a sudden, now you've gotten engaged team member who goes home and goes, well, I won't have two beers, So I'll have a cup of tea, scribble down a couple of ideas, and they I'll give them to Gary in the morning.
I hope you are now feeling inspired to maybe create your own one pager that you do every day at the end of your work day, and if you are looking for more tips to improve the way that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped me work better, which range from gadgets and software that I'm loving and interesting research findings that I've come across. You can sign up
for that at Howiwork dot co. That's how I Work dot C. How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios, and thank you to Martin Nimba, who does the audio mix for every episode and makes this all sound much better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.