The First 2 Hours

Chapter 7Fourth 2 hours Preactive

Finally, you’ve made it! You’re nearing the end of the day.

This is usually the time when people have a heart attack because they realise they’ve been answering emails all day long and haven’t actually got around to any valuable work.

Well, if you’ve been following the rules, you will find that the last quarter of the day (shown in figure 7.1, overleaf) is all about wrapping up the current day and preparing yourself for the next one. That’s why, in many respects, I believe the last two hours of the day are as important as, if not more important than, the first two hours.

Figure 7.1: the fourth 2 hours

It’s where you review what you completed today, and set up for tomorrow.

Second wind?

Now we are being preactive, which means planning, not necessarily doing, what needs to be done. Things that you do here help reduce the number of decisions you have to make the next day, when you start your first two hours again.

While the specific time varies, many of us experience an upward swing of energy and alertness in the fourth two hours, with a peak around 6 pm. This is often experienced as ‘second wind’, when we begin to feel a little more energetic and have the capacity to push through. If we’re lucky, we end our day with a bang!

During an interview for the Chicago Tribune, Timothy Monk, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s ...