We get 25,000 days as an adult of which 10,000 we’ll spend in the office. Yet, after the first days are gone, we do very little if anything to improve our health and productivity at work. But it all begins with our very first day at work.
Just as blue-collar jobs, white-collar jobs can put our health at risk over the long term. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer all have been linked to a sedentary lifestyle.
To perform at your best, you need to prepare your workplace to support your health and productivity. The odds are that you won’t take action after you get settled and immersed yourself into work. And nobody will care for your well-being and productivity if you don’t.
As the famous saying goes, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.” Although it’s attributed to Abraham Lincoln, there wasn’t a time in human history when these words conveyed more meaning. Careful preparation is half the battle.
Read on to figure out 15 smart things you need to do on your first day at work.
Show up early
Leave nothing to chance and show up earlier than expected on your first day at work. Don’t trust Google in estimating how long it takes you to drive or commute to work. Calculate with a worst-case scenario: build in some time for traffic jams, weather issues, and service breakdown.
Find a route and means of transport that allows maximum exposure to walking and reading.
If you hit the office too early, use the remaining time to do a quick meditation session and explore the field. Who else is already showing up to work? They will be your alliances. (More on that later.)
Set up your workspace
Setting up your workspace ergonomically might save you some health issues downstream. According to a Mayo Clinic guide, your monitor should be placed an arm’s length away from you and the top of the screen should be slightly below eye level.
Sit with straight wrists and relaxed shoulders, and keep your upper arms close to your body. Your feet should rest flat on the floor, so make sure that you adjust your chair accordingly.
Don’t place your monitor directly either in front of or back to the window.
If you’re using a laptop computer, reduce radiation exposure by placing it on a table and not on your lap.
Adjust font and icon sizes on your PC
Eyestrain is one of the most common health issues in the office. By adjusting your screen to your preferences, you avoid developing strained eyes. Proper font and icon sizes also support a healthy posture, which we discussed above.
If the office has a dry climate—which is often the case—use eye drops to avoid dry eyes.
An ophthalmologist once told me that finding the right lubricant takes experimentation. I finally settled with a brand that’s good for my eyes and is manufactured so that it can be used for up to six months after opening. (Most brands recommend that you dispose the bottle no longer than a single month after opening.)
It’s time to look for what makes 60 percent of you: water.
Look for some fresh water—Plenty of it
Do you know what’s on the morning routine of many successful people? Drinking water. Large amounts of water.
The recommended daily water intake, according to a report published by the National Academies, is 2.7 liters for women and 3.7 liters for men. About 80 percent of this total water intake comes from drinking water, and 20 percent comes from food. While the amount of water you need highly depends on your physical activity and environment, among others, thirst is a reliable guide to meet your needs.
I always keep a bottle of water on my desk to avoid dehydration.
It’s time to pull out your notes.
Take a master-note
Taking a master-note upon your first day can serve you over the long term. Jot down jargon and abbreviations colleagues use to immerse yourself into the culture.
Take notes about important contacts, go-to persons, and workspace hierarchy.
Over time, you can create individual notes to dive deeper into a topic, but for now, take advantage of a master-note. If you use Evernote, you can easily make cross-references between notes, which makes it easy for you to jump back and forth between individual notes. What’s more, you can encrypt sensitive content and unlock it with a password.
Don’t forget to keep your passwords in a single and safe place. If your employer agrees, you can use a password manager to save and even generate your passwords. LastPass and 1Password are great tools to start with.
Let’s get back to your desk …
Speed up your mouse
For a long time, I failed to notice how mouse speed impacts my productivity. In Windows, for example, you can adjust mouse speed on a slider. Just go to the control panel, find mouse settings, and click the pointer options tab to adjust speed.
The faster the better.
Set up your file system
Your first day at work begins with a blank screen. Over time, however, your files could take over. If you don’t take immediate action and build up a reliable file system upfront, you’ll have a hard time finding important stuff later.
If you use Evernote, for example, you could make use of tags to batch similar documents together. Not the system that you create that counts but the consistency.
Whether you use a cloud-based solution or not, make sure that you always have a backup in place. Nothing can be more frustrating than having your hard drive broken. Once my desktop computer was kicked by a colleague of mine (well, by accident). As a result, my hard drive stopped working. All data were lost. Thankfully, nearly all of my working material had already been removed to a file server.
Recruit the three musketeers
No matter what field you work in, the three musketeers will serve you through the hard times.
Here’s the trio:
- A task manager: Keep your to-do list in a task manager. Working from a list guarantees that you always know what you will work on and never miss an important task.
- A note-taking tool: Take notes about phone calls, meetings, ideas and then put the actionable stuff into your task manager.
- A mind mapping tool: Use mind mapping for creative work. Plan out complex projects, brainstorm ideas, lay out the content structure, and prepare for your presentations.
If you want to learn more about what tools I use and recommend, you might find this article interesting.
Put your assistant into work
It’s time to put your virtual assistant into work: get a text expander tool.
Our work is highly repetitive. We don’t even recognize how often we use certain formulas and phrases over and over again. What if you don’t have to type them anymore?
Here’s the thing: you define an autotext that will unfold into, say, an email address, a link, or a complete email. And then you define a trigger that will execute your autotext. Such a trigger can be simply hitting the space button on your keyboard. (Autotext can be executed immediately as well.)
Let’s see an example. Say you want to wrap up your email address, john.doe@gmail.com. Your autotext can be xemail, which will then automatically unfold into your email address.
Here’s a list that you might want to consider for text expansion:
- Your email address
- Your postal address
- Important phone numbers
- Your username(s)
- How you address people
- How you end your letters and emails
- Frequently used phrases
- Frequently misspelled phrases
- A complete body of an email (email templates)
- Commonly used links (homepage, blog, product, etc.)
If you’re new to text expansion, here’s an article I’ve written about PhraseExpress, one of the most trusted tools out there.
Now is the time to get to the advanced stuff …
Create your workday startup ritual
According to Michael Hyatt, there’re four types of automation: self-automation, template automation, process automation, and tech automation.
Creating a workday startup ritual, Hyatt argues in his book, Free to Focus, is kind of a self-automation. Here’s how it goes.
You make a short list of what to do when hitting the office. By making the list, you’re freeing up your mind from decision fatigue and it’s a doorstep of building good habits. It makes sense because it teaches discipline and consistency.
Your workday startup ritual might look like this one:
- Check my goals
- Check my calendar
- Do my most important tasks
How, then, do you identify your most important tasks? Read on to find out …
Create your workday shutdown ritual
Again, I borrowed the term from Michael Hyatt, who is a big advocate of rituals.
The shutdown ritual ensures that you close the open loops, plan out the next day, and leave the office with a Zen mind. It prepares you for unplugged family time and a productive next day.
Here’s my current shutdown ritual:
- Check open loops and to-do list
- Plan out the next day
- Set my most important tasks for tomorrow
- Fill in my 1 percent journal
Ask your boss to prioritize your duties
It implies that you already know what your duties will be. Anyway, over the first days, make a list of your duties as an employee. Ask your colleagues, boss, teammates, and take notes about what you’re supposed to do. Then ask for an appointment with your boss and show up with a sheet listing your responsibilities.
Ask him or her to prioritize your duties. Just tell him that you want to focus on the things that matter most. It doesn’t mean that you avoid the rest altogether. It’s a filter that will guide your efforts. I learned this strategy from Brian Tracy’s bestselling book, Success and Achievement.
Hang this list on the wall or put it on your screen and consult it when things go crazy.
Educate colleagues about your working policies
If there’s a place for some autonomy in how you approach work, politely educate your colleagues about your policies over the few weeks. Make sure that you have your “policies” approved by your boss and communicate them with due care.
Here’s a list that you may want to consider:
- Deep work sessions: In whatever position you work, you certainly have tasks and projects on your plate that need special attention. In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport defines deep work as “professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.” Make sure that you plan out time for deep work and don’t be afraid to protect and communicate your deep work sessions.
- Consulting hours: Define your “consulting hours” when colleagues and subordinates are supposed to contact you in person.
- Email autoresponders: Review your workflow and figure out how you can avoid bouncing email back and forth by using some if-then planning. I learned this from Tim Ferriss, author of the 4-Hour Work Week. Set up an email autoresponder addressing the most common issues in your work. You might add some FAQ-like content to your email as well.
As we’re concluding to the end of this post, let’s discuss one more thing that can be a life-changing experience.
Develop new habits right from day one
Your first week at work is the perfect time to form new habits. Just think about it. Everything is new. Around every corner there lurks a new opportunity to see changes in your life:
- You might choose a new route and means of transport to the office
- You might avoid the elevators and take the stairs instead
- You might bring in some fresh veggies for breakfast
- You might begin your workday with your new startup ritual
- You might befriend with colleagues that better support your goals
- You might choose the local cafeteria to eat and skip fast food restaurants
- You might leave the office at a regular time
Everything is easier because you’re subject to new cues in a completely new environment.
Over the first days or weeks, you have to make constant decisions on how to get to the office, how to get to your desk, where to eat, whit whom to hang out, and what to do first thing in the morning.
But this is a one-time opportunity that doesn’t last for long. A few weeks later, you’ll find yourself on autopilot and don’t make those decisions anymore. So, experiment a little bit and make sure that you cast your votes for the right things.
Don’t magnify your first day at work
Your first day at work doesn’t necessarily reflect your long-term trajectory. Don’t take things to heart. You have plenty of time to engage with the culture.
Never stop asking the question of how you can make things better. That’s what brings us to the conclusion.
Your first day at work: a summary
Here’s what we’ve covered in this post:
- Show up early
- Set up your workspace
- Adjust font and icon sizes on your PC
- Look for fresh water—Plenty of it
- Take a master-note
- Speed up your mouse
- Set up your file system
- Recruit the three musketeers
- Put your assistant into work
- Create your workday startup ritual
- Create your workday shutdown ritual
- Ask your boss to prioritize your duties
- Educate colleagues about your working policies
- Develop new habits right from day one
- Don’t magnify your first day at work
Many of the things discussed in this post can be of benefit to you not only on your first day at work, but over the long term. Showing up early, for example, means more time for deep work, which equals with better performance and more family time in the evening. People who are showing up early might support you by showing evidence of your hard work.
If there’s a single message I want you to come home with, it’s that always ask how you can improve your work and productivity. Never settle for the it-always-has-been-done-that-way mindset.
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More about a productive workday
- 7 Ridiculously Simple Tips to Get Organized at Work
- Make Your Commute More Productive with These 6 Tips
- 69 Proven Methods to Multiply Your Productivity for a Lifetime
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