At the End of the Day…

  Career Development   New Practitioners   ProjectsAtWork  

Creating a few questions to ask yourself (or a trusted peer) at the end of each day is a great way to stay on track with your goals, and to align them with your values. This habit can also help you escape ‘fire-fighting mode’ and gain fresh perspectives on handling persistent challenges.

One way to make sure we don’t lose focus of what is important to us is to create a daily check-in or checklist of 3-5 questions to ask yourself at the end of each day. Marshall Goldsmith discusses this technique with Stever Robbins in this podcast interview. Create a list of questions that you will ask yourself at the end of each day. They should be questions with answers that are either yes, no, or a number. At the end of every day, ask yourself your predetermined questions (as many as you like) to check whether you are on track.

Your questions can address a mix of short-term and long-term goals as well as personal and professional goals. It can include tasks for the week as well as strategic initiatives or even goals such as balance or family time. Goldsmith’s questions focused on becoming a better person and included questions such as, “Was there a time today when I was unkind to someone?” … “How happy was I today on a scale of 1 to 10?” … “How many times did I try to prove I was right and it wasn’t worth it?” … “How many times did I get angry today?” … “How many sit-ups did I do?” ……

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