You arrive at the office and, as usual, face a long list of tasks to accomplish: getting back to your colleagues about joint projects, sending those time-sensitive e-mails, finishing up that important performance review, making progress on one project, deciding on next steps for another. What’s the best way to tackle your to-do list?
You may have devised a personal strategy to help you order your various tasks. But if you are like most people, you may not give too much thought about when is the best time to tackle each of them. You should. Recent research suggests that you need to think more strategically about how the time of day affects your decisions and performance.