How Can You Sit Down and Start Working Right Away?

Let's draw a picture of ordinary employees who start their work at nine in the morning. They sleepily enter the kitchen and make their coffee, then they arrive and sit at their desk, then spends 30 minutes or so scrolling through Facebook or YouTube or reading the news until they are ready to "go to work."

Note: This article is based on the work of Thanh Pham, founder of the blog "Asianefficiency," who tells us about starting an effective and productive work day.

In the meantime, they usually check their e-mail, maybe look at some sticky notes from the day before, and start thinking about what they are going to do that day or even worse. They just look at what was left open on their PC desktop from the previous day and start working on it, or they may turn to their boss and ask, "What do you want me to do today?"

Now, if they arrive at 9 am, it is probably close to 10 or 10:30 am. After all of this staggering, they have wasted a good part of the working day, and this method is useless and will never lead to high productivity.

The energetic employees get up early, follow an exemplary morning schedule, get to the job site as quickly as possible, sit down, and finish their most important tasks promptly. By 10:30 am when most people start their day, they've already done the most important part of their day.

How do you turn from an ordinary employee into an energetic employee

So, how do you turn from an ordinary employee into an energetic and productive employee and be able to sit down and start doing your tasks right away?

For this to work, there are two important steps you need to take:

1. The first step is what you do the night before.
2. The second step is what you do in the morning.

This is a system and sequence that anyone can follow to be productive every morning and every day.

The night before

The night before the morning you want to be productive, you should follow an evening routine. The most important part of the evening ritual as it relates to getting to work right away is: Create your to-do list for tomorrow, and today.

What this means is that if tomorrow is Wednesday, you create your to-do list for Wednesday on Tuesday night, and you can do that as the last part of your work for the day, usually right when you get ready to leave work.

If you work from home or on a laptop, you can also do this right before bed, as this step is enough to inform your subconscious mind about what you have planned for the next day, and allows you to take advantage of the subconscious mind to make your tasks for the next day much easier.

To get started, research your task resources using task management software such as Things or OmniFocus or project management systems such as JIRA or TFS, look at your drawing sheets and notes and the random thoughts you wrote down, and also think of anything that comes to mind.

From these sources, you can compile your to-do list for the next day. Divided into sections for work and personal tasks, you then select your Most important things and arrange them in the way you think suits you the best. The most important of these will be the first thing you do in the morning, and then you go home, rest and sleep.

Some people may object at this point: "This method doesn't work. Things change between when we get home and the next day and we have to deal with it all over again."

Well, working with clients we know that this is not true in most cases that people think it is. There are always exceptions, of course. So, let's see what we should do in the morning if this actually happens.

The morning

By this time you've got your written to-do list from the previous day, and you're up and ready to go to work, you'll want to start with a powerful morning ritual.

Arriving at the office after some time on the commute can be a great time to listen to audiobooks if you're driving, or check email on your phone if you're taking public transportation.

In both cases, whether you arrive at your desk or open your computer, have a cup of coffee or tea if you want, and then go directly to the computer.

When you sit down, read through the to-do list you made the night before and start with the most important ones first, with no exceptions. Ignore literally everything else and get the most important task done first. Don't read email, don't read the news, don't scroll through Instagram or Facebook, but just get your to-do list and work on the most important ones first.

Now the only exception to this is if there are pressures around you that really threaten to destroy everything, like "life or death" or "I'll be fired if I don't" situation. In fact, if you ignore those warning notices until you finish your most important task, you'll have a very productive day and still be able to handle those emergencies.

Quick example:

There was a military coup recently in Thailand. I could have spent the whole day reading the news, checking Twitter to what was going on, or watching the tanks driving down the main road. Instead, I recorded something my friend said about it, noticed there was no immediate danger, and went to my computer and got to work.

In fact, the events taking place around you resolve themselves, whether you contributed to them or not.

Combine the two steps together

What we're really talking about here is a series of habits. From the right preparation the night before, to morning rituals, to starting your most important tasks as soon as you sit down to work, all it takes is a little self-discipline to start this chain of habits.

It helps you to have the right mindset. For example, you say: “I can be productive,” or you adopt the idea of not mixing work and entertainment together. By entertainment, I mean reading the news, scrolling Facebook, etc., while working, and you can always have fun later after performing your most important task.

If you practice this series of habits daily, you will have plenty of time to do everything you want to do.

This chain of habits will turn you into an unstoppable productivity force that will consistently work productively one day at a time and always accomplish something important no matter where you are.

For example: I am writing this from my hotel room in London before heading to a seminar at 9 am.

In conclusion

For the success of this work, remember that you need these two steps:

1. Prepare the night before, and let your subconscious mind work while you sleep.
2. Execute your business plan without mistakes the next morning.