Prepare the night before.

At emdash, we all meet every morning at 10 to plan our days. We all tell each other what we have for the day and learn availability for small catch ups and things. Before I get to how the planning is done, let me tell you a little about the company structure.

There is me — I typically handle all business development, customer relationships, and quality check. There are now three writers, who do most of the writing and a designer, who does visuals. 

Because I handle almost all customer relationships, I’m the one who knows what’s up next: New projects, rework, reviews, invoicing, whatever it is. Without me informing my team, they’re unlikely to know. (They’ll be copied in emails, but what about WhatsApp messages, phone calls etc., right?)

So, to ensure that my team can prepare for their day, I set everything up on our project management tool the previous night. This means that:

• My team knows what to do each day.

• I know what to expect for reviews the day after.

• Clients can be informed of problems, if any, at least 24 hours in advance.

• When I have an outdoor day — for adventures like going to the bank, for instance — my team will know well in advance.

For teams, this list of advantages is endless. 

But the most valuable thing for me, personally, is that my precious morning time is never wasted. I’ll never have a day when I wake up, don’t know what to do, therefore reading emails endlessly.

Taking 10 minutes to plan the next day saves me a lot of anxiety / confusion in the morning.