5 tasks for every PR person’s daily to-do list

Recently, I analyzed my day and identified five habits that underpin a typically successful day at the office. Whether you are a spokesperson, a CEO, a PR professional (or all of the above), these five habits can help you improve your daily routine and accomplish your business goals.

1. Read. Keeping up with the breakneck speed of news is a crucial activity that is easily pushed aside by more urgent tasks. Reading the newspaper for general news or a trade journal for a particular industry can be postponed repeatedly without immediate consequences, but do it enough and your results will show a lack of preparation. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Great ideas are mined from a wealth of knowledge. Don’t bother to read, and you’ll have a shallow mine.

2. Prioritize. I was reminded at a recent lecture about how easy it is to delay important tasks and focus instead on easy or more enjoyable responsibilities, such as responding to email. If you don’t rank the importance of your to-do list, you’ll end up doing what you find easiest while delaying the consequential stuff. Disorganization and lack of deliberation produce stress and mistakes; prioritizing is the answer.