One of the advantages of getting older is the wisdom you pick up along the way. You learn to take the perceived wisdom of others and to stretch it, deconstruct it and play with it to see if there are better ways of doing the work.

Some of this advice is time-tested. For example, use a calendar to keep track of your appointments, collect all your tasks into a central place and take notes. The tools you can use to do these may change, but the principles don’t.

One of the lessons life has taught me is if I want to have a focused, productive day, I must know what needs to be done before the day starts. If I don’t know what needs doing when the day begins, I will be tempted to spend hours in email looking for work or doom scrolling through social media to fill the time and feel I am doing something.

If you want to improve your productivity significantly, you need to know what has to be done before it needs to be done.

This means before you end the day, you do a mini-planning session — what I call the daily planning session (or Golden Ten). All you require is ten to fifteen minutes to look at what’s on your calendar for tomorrow and what tasks need to be done.

Once you know that, you pick two tasks as your “must-do” or objective tasks for the day. You will do whatever it takes to complete these tasks before the day ends.

The advantage of doing this daily is you become much more focused on what is important to you. Some of these tasks will be work-related, and others will be personal. For example, today, a Monday, I began the day knowing that this blog post had to be written. I also know that this afternoon I will go to the gym. These two tasks are non-negotiable. They will be done.

Looking at your calendar and task list before you end the day and deciding what your objective, must-do tasks for the next day are, focuses you and gives you the clarity needed to ensure the important things are being done day after day. When this becomes a habit, you gain greater control over your day and saying “no” to things that are not important becomes a lot easier.

One of the reasons Charles C Schwab paid Ivy Lee the equivalent of $250,000 for his productivity tip (writing out the six most important tasks to complete the next day before you leave the office) was because it works. It worked 100 years ago, and it still works today. It’s simple, and it takes less than ten minutes to do.

To reinforce this practice, when you begin the day, look at your task list and calendar and decide when you will do your must-do tasks. For instance, this morning, I had a coaching call at 7:00 am, and once my call finished, I took a ten-minute break and began writing this post. I made that decision at 6:30 am while I was writing my journal.

I know I will go to the gym at 2:30 pm (I put it on my calendar) and will not allow anything to get in the way. I feel focused, prepared and confident that the day will be productive.

The practice of planning the day before you end the day and reviewing your decision in the morning is like how pilots do their work. A pilot does not just roll out of bed, get into the cockpit and turn on the engines. Instead, before arriving at the aircraft, they plan their journey. They know their destination; they check the weather for adverse conditions and plot their journey to avoid these dangers.

Similarly, surgeons performing operations today will know what operations they will be performing before they start their day and at what time and details of their patients. A surgeon would never arrive at the operating room unprepared. Not only would that be unprofessional, but it would also be perilous.

If you want to be more productive and more in control of your time, you need to plan your day. And this does not just mean you work day. It also means planning your non-work days. — even if that is simply planning to have a rest.

If I have had an intense work period for a week or two. I will schedule a day of rest. I still plan the day. For instance, I will decide the evening before that tomorrow I will not start the day in my studio. I may choose to start the day by waking up naturally (with no alarm) and then take my dog for a walk. It’s an easy planning session, but it’s still planned. If I didn’t do that, I would likely begin the day by checking email, and that could lead me to do work. That is not exactly what I want to do on a rest day.

It’s the daily planning that puts you in control of your days. It mentally prepares you for whatever tasks you decide you will do and gives you greater clarity and focus. The important things get done, and you are less stressed and overwhelmed. Try it for a week. You will be surprised by the results you see.

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