The Daily Progress Checklist

By Teresa Amabile and Steven KramerSales Management and Talent Insights

Near the end of each work day, use this checklist to review the day and plan your managerial actions for the next day. After a few days, you will be able to identify issues by scanning the boldface words.

First, focus on progress and setbacks and think about specific events (catalysts, nourishers, inhibitors, and toxins) that contributed to them.

Related: Why Managing Up Matters

Next, consider any clear inner-work-life clues and what further information they provide about progress and other events. Finally, prioritise for action.

The action plan for the next day is the most important part of your daily review: What is the one thing you can do to best facilitate progress?

The action plan for the next day is the most important part of your daily review: What is the one thing you can do to best facilitate progress?

Inner work life

Did I see any indications of the quality of my subordinates’ inner work lives today?

Perceptions of the work, team, management, firm    

Emotions

Motivation   

What specific events might have affected inner work life today?

Action Plan

  1. What can I do tomorrow to strengthen the catalysts and nourishers identified and provide the ones that are lacking?
  2. What can I do tomorrow to start eliminating the inhibitors and toxins identified?

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About Author

Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer

Teresa Amabile is Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She researches what makes people creative, productive, happy, and motivated at work. The author of two books and over 100 scholarly papers, she holds a doctorate in psychology from Stanford University. Steven Kramer is an independent researcher, writer, and consultant in Wayland, Massachusetts. Their book The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement and Creativity at Work is forthcoming from Harvard Business Review Press.