STEP 1 (5 Minutes) Set Plan for Day. Before turning on your computer, sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make this day highly successful. What can you realistically accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling like you’ve been productive and successful? Write those things down.
Now, most importantly, take your calendar and schedule those things into time slots, placing the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. And by the beginning of the day I mean, if possible, before even checking your email. If your entire list does not fit into your calendar, reprioritize your list.

STEP 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don’t let the hours manage you.

If you want to get something done, decide when and where you’re going to do it. Otherwise, take it off your list.

STEP 3 (5 minutes) Review. Shut off your computer and review your day. What worked? Where did you focus? Where did you get distracted? What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?
The power of rituals is their predictability. You do the same thing in the same way over and over again. And so the outcome of a ritual is predictable too. If you choose your focus deliberately and wisely and consistently remind yourself of that focus, you will stay focused. It’s simple.

If you want to elicit stories around the theme of, say. leadership simply spread the cards face up on a table (or the floor) and say, “today we are focussed on the issue of leadership. Take a look at these pictures and pick up the one that grabs your attention and reminds you of something that happened in relation to leadership.”

Everyone picks up a card. Then you go around the group asking them to recount the experience that was triggered by the picture. You will be amazed at the depth and variety of the stories you collect.

(Via Anecdotally Newsletter, March 2009 Issue)