When midnight hits on New Year’s Eve, many of us find ourselves making the resolution to “do better at work this year”.

You start the year with this renewed enthusiasm and drive to become your ideal work self and when you’d like to accomplish this.. I mean, that’s what SMART goals are right. But then May comes around and you glance at your calendar, and realise that you haven’t even made a start on your goals. You’re constantly busy, your emails are piling up, events are crowding your calendar, instant messages are continuously popping up in your phone like a machine that goes “ping” from Monty Python, and people are interrupting you for “a coffee and catch up”, or “a quick question.” Where did all that time go?

It’s easy to let ourselves get caught up in the grind of everyday work, and it’s hard to let yourself grow into the role you want if things keep getting in the way. Here are some tips to help you achieve a sustainably high performance at work, maintain a creative mindset, handle the pressure and keep your emotional brain in check.

1. Minimise distractions by tuning out of the world around you

As anybody who works at a high performance knows, the first thing you need to do is clear out you distractions to get you onto the task at hand. Most of us work in an environment that is may be considered “fast paced”. Truth be told, most of us work in an environment that is simply steady, sustained work coming to your desk. What makes most workplaces fast paced is that there are peak times, or times when everyone does everything. It is important to understand that when these times are happening, you need to tune out and focus on the task at hand. Don’t go for coffee. Don’t answer that email just yet. Log out of Slack. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. The time for work is now.

2. Minimise decision fatigue by making one less decision a day

Many of today’s and yesterday’s leaders are familiar with this concept. It’s the reason why Mark Zuckerberg , Barack Obama and Steve Jobs wore the same thing each day. It’s also the reason Tom Ford has a uniform. Decision fatigue starts small, with the first decision of the day being what you should wear, but can end up making strategic decisions for the fate of the company.

Decision-making takes energy, and while we might be full of energy in the morning, come mid-afternoon our decision brains are almost spent. For this, you need to be efficient with the way you use your decisions throughout the day. If you can make one decision every day, and remember that decision, it can have a profound effect on your week, your month or even your year.

3. Make goal setting part of every day, without your boss or HR involved

Most performance management these days is centred around goal setting and achievement. As part of your morning routine, take it upon yourself to set these goals, so that you’re not only ahead of the game when it comes to performance management, but you can actively push yourself to do better each day. Your boss will love it.

To summarise: Set goals; focus; and streamline your decision making to achieve sustainable, high performance at work and turn resolutions into results.

Amanda Chan - Talent Broker, Search, Social and Analytics

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Amanda Chan works for a leading Digital recruitment firm S2M with offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore .

If you are a Digital Marketer interested in a confidential chat, then get in touch on amanda .chan@s2m.com.au