Does planning and organising really float your boat? 

OR…do you live in unorganised chaos, but long to kick-ass at organising? 

Either way, you might be surprised about how Microsoft tools can help you!  

In this blog you will learn: 

• What workday rituals are 
• How to use Microsoft To Do to set up a workday ritual checklist that you can tick off every day 
• Why a workday ritual can be really powerful to keep you on track with your goals and help you get organised 

What is a workday ritual? 

Another piece of the ‘Getting Things Done’ methodology that I’ve written about in some of my previous blogs is workday rituals. Workday rituals are designed to keep you focused on your goals by forcing you to think about how you can work towards them each day, even if the action you take is a very small one. 

I have 2 rituals for the start and end of my workday – they’re called workday startup and workday shutdown, and I block out time on my calendar to do them. You can find out more about the science behind why rituals help you focus your mind here: The Science of Rituals | Full Focus (plus I recommend all of the Full Focus stuff! It’s amazing for productivity tips.) 

I’ve also found that with a busy home life, my workday startup ritual helps me quickly get into work mindset and how to win the work day (even if my four year old has left my house in chaos). My workday shutdown ritual helps me to make sure my work priorities are set for the following day, which gives me a great head start, and also helps me transition back into ‘home’ mode so that I’m not distracted by thinking about work when I’m supposed to be mum-ing. I’ve found this especially helpful when working from home and the commute is just down the stairs. 

My workday rituals are specific to me, and you’ll need to spend a bit of time putting some thought into how you’d like your rituals to work for you. 

As you’ll know by now, my advice is always to ‘start with the end in mind’. What does a great day at work look like for you? 

• What are the things you need to remind yourself to focus on? 
• Are you working towards your goals and if not, how can you pivot your focus? 
• What do you need to prioritise? 
• What do you need to de-prioritise? 
• What gets you in a great, productive mood? 

I’ve found it best to create a ritual that only takes about 15 minutes to do (this part will be a little bit trial and error), and it shouldn’t include big meaty tasks like ‘clear my inbox’ – only prompts to get you into a productive, work-ready, goal-focused mindset.

To give you a flavour, some of the things on my workday startup list are: 

1. Check community for activity – this is directly related to my job role as community manager and helps make sure I’m focused on that from the very beginning of the day 
2. Quick email/Teams skim for anything urgent – this helps me catch anything pressing without getting dragged into inbox clearing 
3. Check my top 3 tasks – I’ve picked three tasks that work towards my goals today – are they realistic to achieve today? 

Here are some from my workday shutdown ritual: 

1. What are my top 3 tasks for tomorrow? – this helps me hit the ground running every workday 
2. Close open tabs – did I leave a tab open so I wouldn’t forget to do something, but then got distracted? If I haven’t gotten around to it, I add it to the list for tomorrow. 
3. How can I focus on my family when I get home? – this helps me be intentional about my relationships and reminds me that I’m transitioning away from work and back into home life. I struggle if the boundaries are blurred so this one is important for me. 

Yours might look very different to this, you might need a coffee, a little bit of meditation, pick whatever works for you. 

Once you have settled on your prompts for your workday startup and shutdown rituals (or maybe just start with the start up / shut down for now and build in both later) – it’s really easy to create a recurring checklist for them using Microsoft To Do. 

How to use Microsoft To Do to set up a workday ritual checklist that you can tick off every day

Setting up a workday rituals list in To Do is easy peasy. Go to: Welcome to To Do (microsoft.com) 

Click on ‘New list’ on the left: 

Call it Workday startup ritual (or whatever you like!) by typing and then press enter 

You’ll have a new blank list: 

Add your prompts by writing in ‘add a task’ for each one 

For each task you’ll need to make sure they repeat every day so that they appear each day on this list for you to tick off. Click on the task and some options will appear on the right hand side: 

Choose repeat and then click on how frequently you’d like them to repeat: 

You might need to choose custom if you have a day off during the week like me: 

Press save, and that’s it! Those tasks will show up on this list for you to tick off every day. 

You can create a new list for your shutdown ritual, I find it helpful to keep them separate. 

I also block time out in my Outlook calendar for the rituals, to remind myself to do them. 

Why a workday ritual can be really powerful to keep you on track with your goals and help you get organised 

By book-ending my work day with these rituals, I’ve found I can much more quickly get organised and hone in on priorities for the day, rather than faffing around and trying to decide what’s best to do. 

They also keep me honest about what I can achieve in the day, and whether I’m working towards my goals or getting distracted with non-urgent but fun things. 

I also find the transition from home to work and back again much clearer in my mind, which helps me. 

Try it out and let me know what you think! 

If you know someone who would enjoy this blog – please share it, thanks!