Your morning proactive routine should begin by being positive and self-confident. It shows and those around you will be more inclined to believe you are capable and the right choice for the job. Shake hands; say it’s nice to meet you etc. and you’re in the same company then make sure you say hello to everyone in your department.

Be pleasant to everyone; especially your team: hello and don’t forget to say have a good evening and thank you for a job well done. Most people work very hard and are seldom thanked. Make a difference and say thank you often.

By now you should know your long term goals and your short term goals. If you don’t set up a meeting to find out what they should be. You can let them know that you want to be successful in fulfilling the responsibilities of the position; in fact suggest meeting every two weeks. I find that one week is not enough time to make significant advances when we are usually responsible for 25 different things; in fact these meetings could take an hour or two and would be better served to actually get the individual responsibilities completed.

Record the goals and specifically write down the major Goal for the week on a Goal sheet.

Make it a smart goal by using the following:

An example of a Smart goal is as follows: If you want to reduce the company’s month end schedule by one day; it would be written up as follows:

The month end schedule will be reduced from 4 days to 3.5 days by April the 15^th.

It is important that you control your day; as it slips away very quickly. I like to have a routine to make myself more effective. I use a daily checklist I begin by checking my state and making sure I feel confident and positive. I believe that all communications; whether it be the written word, emails, texts, phone calls or face to face meetings will be more powerful and more apt to be successful when in this state. I then turn some music on; usually baroque or the ambience type. Many believe that Baroque relaxes you and relieves stress and in this state allows you to learn, reason and retain more.

Next on my list is listening to my voice mails. I take care of the urgent ones right away, and schedule the rest as to when I’ll need to get back to them. This is usually 2:00 as I have blocked out half an hour between 2:00 and 2:30 to return any calls that are not urgent and that is also when I ask most people to call me as well. I only erase them when the duties required are completed. I usually give myself a goal of an estimated 7 messages and work real hard to keep it at that level. You can test this number. If you are at 7 and you feel that you are generally falling behind on phone requests or being told that you are; maybe you should lower this amount.

Next I go to emails in the same fashion as the voice massages except try to keep the number at 20 or less. Because of the sheer quantity that we usually receive and the time to complete them; we will probably have to block out at least half an hour. As the voice messages; we are only trying to determine what is requested of us; updates to what we’re working on etc. If you can’t respond quickly; than schedule it based on the ranking of its importance against your current goals, emails, incoming mail, Outlook etc. Write back to those people who expect you to keep them abreast of developments.

Note also: If you can! Address a voice mail or Email request; let them know when you can; and keep track of your commitment date. Block a good chunk of time to address your current goal and do it. Estimate whether you can complete the project on the date, or how much you can do. Challenge yourself – Work hard to get caught up, make improvements and have some fun while doing it.

Next go to Outlook and see what is scheduled today and plan for it. Then take a look at your reminders; as well.

Finally go to your in basket; take care of what can be quickly; ie move to your “To be filed” pile, forward to others as required, input to your computer etc. Then again rank; the rest.

As you can see; we’ve addressed what we could quickly; then ranked the rest in order of importance.

Now begin your big goal of the day and spend the required time but by noon address the current emails that have arrived since you began this morning. By focusing on your big goals; they get most of your attention and more apt to be completed.

These goals are either set from your month end schedule, yearend schedules and, or ongoing projects that you are working on.

Once you’ve completed this; go back to your goal for the day; if more time is required. Then attend to the voice messages, emails, Outlook calendar and or Outlook reminders.

Excerpt from Paul J. Calleri’s up and coming book on Management Excellence. Paul J. Calleri is a FCPA, FCMA of Paul J. Calleri, Chartered Professional Accounting, founder of TheGAAP.net, TheGAAP.netCareers, The CPA Toronto Accounting Meet Up Group and entrepreneur.