Personal Excellence: Turning Tasks Into HABITS

by Andy Robinson Monday, November 14, 2011

Andy has over 15 years experience as an Executive Coach, Career Success Coach and Personal Branding Strategist. He has a total of 25 years business and leadership experience across a variety of industries, serving scores of companies of all sizes (Fortune 100 to small, locally owned businesses) as a management consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers (10 years), a professional advisor, and an outside executive coach. Andy is also an author, speaker, professional trainer and co-host of the Career Success Radio Show on Exceptional Wisdom Radio. To add to his respected list of credibility, he is a licensed member of the International Coach Federation (ICF). He loves what he does for a living!

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We recently interviewed Stever Robbins as a guest on the Career Success Radio Show. In preparation for the interview I read Stever's newest book, "Get-It-Done-Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More," -- a book I highly recommend.

One of the helpful tips that Stever suggests in his book to overcome procrastination by turning routine tasks into habits -- daily habits, weekly habits, monthly habits, etc. Establish a habit by making it a regular occurring activity and put it on your calendar to remind you. When the time comes, treat it as an appointment.

If you don't make your tasks a habit, you're stuck back with deciding when to do them, IF to do them and your natural tendency becomes to put them off -- to procrastinate. Many times, they don't get done on time or don't get done at all.

Potential habits to develop at work might include:

• Establishing regular times to review and respond to email
• Setting standing meeting times with your direct reports
• Setting aside a specific time to make follow-up phone calls
• Establishing a time each day to focus on social media communication - LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
• Establishing a day and time each week for weekly planning
• Establishing a time each day for a daily recap and review