The source: the "Vedomosti" newspaper
Here is some practical advice from professional consultants:
Do this daily:
Do not shy away from daily asking yourself during the first workday hour, whether you still want to do this job for this company. If the answer is no, begin the day with talking to your boss and the human resources manager. You will either be given more interesting work or, which is the best choice in a situation like this, you will quit. That will be the first step on the way to not asking yourself stupid questions every morning but, instead, enjoy your work and your life.
Traditionally, after relaxing during summer vacationing, September becomes, for many, the time of adapting to work, while rethinking their working time organization. We asked three professional consultants, Roman Ivanov from Formatta, Lyudmila Shusterova from BDO and Maria Makarushkina from Ecopsi Consulting, what should and what should not be done during the first workday hour. Their answers we combined in the following several practical suggestions. Mr. Ivanov said, right away, that all people being different, generalizing was hard. "The biological clock makes some people more productive in the morning while others do better in the afternoon. In any case, a single morning can definitely change one's whole day or, sometimes, whole life".
What should be done during the first working hour
To begin with, one should physiologically activate one's body, invigorate one's muscles and nervous system. This may be achieved by jogging, jumping, visiting a gym or simply drinking a cup of coffee. Everyone's got their own fancies.
Spend five minutes tuning yourself to this particular day, evaluating your mood, listening to your feelings about the tasks you have or, possibly, naming the day ahead of you like, for instance, "the day of accord", "the day of combat", the celebration of professionalism", etc. This emotional tuning will stir up your imagination, help concentrate and set the pace of all things to be done.
What is essential? You should ask yourself this question every morning. Do it boldly and without hesitation, even though you may know that there is no possible answer. If there is no general answer, try to find an answer for this particular day. If you know the answer and can see fresh colors in your work, you are definitely in for an interesting and successful day, even if its tasks are routine, too difficult or too unpleasant.
Planning. Hourly planning will help you to harmonically spread daily tasks without forgetting anything important. Do not forget to plan some fun for the night. The expectation of going to a theater or a movie theater, having a supper with the one you love, having friends to come in, etc. will help you to fruitfully live through a hard day, making hard daily work fun.
Many managers spend some time in the morning reading primary market news, although that may also be done in the afternoon.
Meeting one's clients or partners at breakfast, before the workday begins, is very effective and convenient. You will combine fun with work drinking coffee while receiving new information or discussing daily issues. If you plan no meeting for the morning and begin the day in the office, have some tea or coffee with your colleagues, using the time to discuss matters at hand. This will help you get friendly with the people and, possibly, get information that later tired coworkers won't easily share. You may briskly ask how certain people are doing or about the progress of certain projects. If a certain issue must be discussed at length, you may, right away, set a meeting for later that day.
Conversations and coffee should not take more than 15 or 20 minutes. Get it over with and get to work. You are better off beginning your work with a couple of quicker things. That will get you into a fighting mood to help you through harder matters. Sometimes it is a good idea to begin with clearing up the last day's leftovers. That will remove worrying and clear you mind. If you need to write a difficult letter or document, just draft it in the morning, formulate the main points and leave the exact wording for the afternoon.
What a workday should not begin with
If you tackle a large difficult problem early in the morning, smaller things may remain undone until the next day. Besides, all that day you will feel like you haven't done anything worth writing home about. Your efficiency will drop by degrees. If the difficult problem proves to be more than you can cope with, you may lose your spirits for the rest of the day. You are better off splitting large projects into smaller sub-tasks instead of trying to consume the elephant in one swallow.
Rebuking your employees in the morning is not a good idea. At least, be restrained about the projects whose deadlines come on the next day. You are better off delaying reprimands until afternoon, especially if you and your colleagues have a lot to say. Certain meetings should not be at all scheduled before 4 p.m. so that you can go and have a drink afterwards. Or, at least, take a sedative.
The same goes for confrontations. Settle them in the afternoon. If push comes to shove, you may lose a lot of time you need to come down and go back to work.
Also try to postpone important phone calls to clients until afternoon. Very often, in the morning, people are busy doing urgent work or go to meetings and do not want to be distracted.
On the whole, all these rules mean that mornings are not for negative emotions or anything too difficult and dispiriting.
