 Ever feel like there's not enough time to get everything done? We've got a way to help. Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step towards becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. Last time we talked about how setting priorities can help us start to focus on the things that are most important to us, this week we're going to talk about how to stay focused on those priorities with everything going on in the world around us. One of the best ways we can maintain focus is by establishing routines. Now I know everyone is groaning because just like writing down a list of priorities, building and sticking to a routine sounds obvious and boring. Most of us want to think of ourselves as free spirits who are flexible and can adapt to the world around us, but some people are better at it than others. So let me ask, how's that working out for you? If it's working great, you can stop watching now. But don't because I think you'll see with what we're going to talk about today, building a daily routine in the right way can actually give us more flexibility in our schedule and help us meet all the priorities we want to achieve. When it comes to building routines, what works best for most people is if we do a task or activity at the same time every day on the days it needs to get done. So if there's a task that we have to do at work every day, we would want to try to schedule that for the same time every day. This helps our body and mind get used to doing that task every day. If we don't do a task every day, say there's something we do once or twice a week, it still helps to schedule that task for the same day and time. So if there's a meeting we need to have every Monday, it's helpful to make it the same time on Monday every week. Not only does this help us get used to it, but it also helps the other meeting attendees get used to it as well. By dedicating our time on the calendar and getting our minds and bodies used to that task at that time, we prepare ourselves to focus on that task and deal with other things at another time. So the idea is to get at least one block of time dedicated on the calendar for each of our most important priorities every day. If we have a priority for the day and there isn't any time dedicated to it, can we expect that we'll really get it done? If it's super important to us, we probably will, but if we get distracted or someone else starts to place demands in our time, the things that aren't scheduled are usually the ones that get dropped. One of the important lessons I learned about building a routine and putting things on the calendar is that it's not a good idea to block off every hour of the day. You want to have some white space in your calendar for the times when changes have to be made. Just like we talked about other people placing demands in our priorities, they also place demands in our time. Sometimes the boss or a client calls a meeting that conflicts with when we had scheduled to work on one of our other important priorities and we need to move it. If we don't have anywhere to move it to, a lot of times that priority gets dropped for the day or not accomplished within the time and quality it deserved. Making a routine and sticking to it helps us build the habits we need to refocus ourselves on an important priority when circumstances have taken us away from it. So I hope this video has convinced you that even though we all want to be flexible and free, building routines appropriately helps us develop the focus we need on our priorities and actually gives us more freedom and flexibility than if we just let each day happen to us without any kind of plan. Like anything else, having a balance between the structure of a routine and the ability to take advantage of opportunities when they come up can help us to become great leaders. If you found this helpful, please share it with a friend or co-worker. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and click off on that globe to the right. That'll get you subscribed to our email list and that'll bring all of our content direct to your inbox. If you have any leadership or business questions you'd like us to answer, reach out to us on social media or email us at info at evilgeniusleadership.com. Thanks for watching, I really appreciate it and remember, the future is out there. Lead the way.