Make the Days Count

Don’t wait for year end to check your goal progress

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One of my favorite podcasts is The Productive Woman. The host, Laura McClellan, shares tactics and strategies to manage the aspects of a full life — the “time, life, stress and stuff” as she says. And on her interview episodes, she asks her guest, “Do you ever have a day that just gets away from you, and if so how do you get back on track?”

My inner dialog chats back at the speaker. “A day? I had a decade and more where life went off the rails, after my solution to stress and dissatisfaction— margaritas, wine, whiskey — turned into its own problem.”

Most guests respond with answers along the lines of paring down their expectations for the day and making the best of it. Some look for an assistant to delegate critical items to or rebook appointments. But the key is, these guests knew their plans, had a track with defined objectives, and recognized when they were veering off course.

That awareness of a plan isn’t a given, though many of us maintain calendar obligations and to-do items for the day, week, month. And yet… how often have you caught yourself doomscrolling through social or mindlessly reading email or Slack messages when that wasn’t on the plan for a particular hour? And how often does that time bring you closer to your intended goals and outcomes? For that matter, how many meetings do you dutifully attend with no definable result to show the time was invested wisely?

Time Study

There’s a process used in executive coaching to determine where a person spends their time. A set of timers is programmed to ring randomly throughout the work day. When the alarm sounds, the person records exactly what she is working on. Not what she was supposed to be working on, or wishes she’d been working on. Nope. The actual thing. “What?! I spend how much time in email?” Ouch.

These studies can provide solid insight for the person who frequently asks, “Where did the day go?” But they are usually run for a short period, a week or maybe two. At the end, the professional and their coach review, optimize, and set an ideal schedule.

The Harada Method brings this daily audit or accountability practice to the day. Instead of running a short…