Work Hacks: Getting 1% Better Every Day

Music. Welcome to the Manager Lab, where we delve into the increasingly dynamic world of talent management.

In each episode, we will unravel key insights, break down the most relevant books and articles, and provide actionable tips to optimize your approach in developing and retaining top talent. Stay tuned for a deep dive into the art, science, and strategy of unlocking your team's full potential. Let's enter the Manager Lab. Several years ago, I got onto GoDaddy.com and purchased a litany of domain names.

I purchased 1% Solution, 1% Life Coach, 1% Momentum, all these domain names around this concept that I had at the time of creating a system of helping people get better 1% at a time, 1% a day, essentially. The concept was to write a book that would have 365 work hacks. So getting 1% better every day, every year, you would improve yourself by 365%, or you'd make a essentially a total reinvention of yourself because of that 360.

You know, you come full circle, essentially. The concept was really cool at the time. I may revive it at some point. I really like the idea of doing something like that. Anyway, over the last few weeks, I've been utilizing one of the concepts that I kind of had stuck away in a file someday, you know, day 45 or whatever it might be. But I've been using it the last two weeks really intently, and it just works so, so well, and it's so simple.

And it's the concept of just writing down your goals for the next day as the very last thing you do before you close the door on your office or walk out of work that day. Very simple. So for instance, last night, right before I kind of closed down everything, I wrote seven different things. I kind of just went through my project list for today. Again, this is last night, but I wrote down everything that I really wanted

to accomplish. there was like seven different things. One of them was this podcast. So I'm actually fulfilling that goal right now. But there were seven different things. And what that allows you to do when you write your goals down for the next day, it allows such clarity and peace of mind as you walk out the door. It just helps you be more present at home with your family. It helps Just take the stress off of worrying about what you're going to be doing the next day.

You know what you're going to be doing. You've got it written down. You don't have to worry about it. And the beauty of it is there's this, and there's books been written about this. There's this process that happens when you have that type of clarity, when you write your goals down. There seems to be this marination in your brain overnight that when you wake up, you know exactly what you need to do. There's. Really good clarity. You can jump right into work whenever you're getting ready

to get started. It's just a beautiful process. So when I woke up this morning, I added a few things to it, not much, but a few things. And I tell you, I've been so productive today. I've just boom, boom, boom, just knocked things off my list. And I've been doing that for the last couple of weeks, And I've just didn't think about really attributing it to this process. But I think if you try this, it will really work.

So the action item here is to simply, before you shut down your office at night, just take time to go through your next day, maybe even go a couple of days out if you're really ambitious. Because, you know, if you need to prep for something day after tomorrow, you need to work that in too, right? Your prep time. And just, I like to use a, you know, a pen and paper. Just write them down.

There's freedom in that. I don't know, much more freedom to me writing things down on a blank sheet of paper and a nice pen than putting them into Outlook or putting them even into Evernote. So I'll just write them down. It's there and it's done. And so challenge yourself to do this. Just take a week and try that. Write all your goals down for the next day before you shut your computer off, before you shut down for the night. See how it affects your evening.

See how it affects your sleep, perhaps. See how it affects the clarity that you wake up with the next day and see how productive you are the next day. I'm convinced that this process may even improve you two or three percent and not just the one percent that I'm shooting for.

Let me know how it works. I'd love to hear from you. And until next time we meet in the manager lab, do good work. You.