Build a realistic first week
Plan access, travel, preparation, questions, learning time, and recovery around the first week of work.
How to Stand Out in Your First 90 Days at Work
From Emily Lago Anderson. Watch here or open it on YouTube .
During the course primer, listen for ideas that change how you approach “Build a realistic first week.” Pause once to capture a useful point, then apply it while producing a first-week calendar and daily closeout template with one disruption plan.What this lesson is really solving.
Plan access, travel, preparation, questions, learning time, and recovery around the first week of work. This is lesson 2 because later decisions depend on a first-week calendar and daily closeout template with one disruption plan. A sustainable first week protects the conditions that let you learn and follow through. Use your own numbers, files, environment, and constraints so the result survives outside the course.
Understand the idea before touching the steps.
A sustainable first week protects the conditions that let you learn and follow through.
Follow these steps in order.
Take the action in each step; then use the deliverable below to prove the lesson is finished.
- 1
Put every start time, route, access step, break, preparation task, and known deadline on one calendar.
- 2
Add a buffer for travel, technology, meals, care, and the first time you perform an unfamiliar task.
- 3
Choose a short end-of-day note: what I learned, what I completed, what is blocked, and what I will ask tomorrow.
See the standard in context.
Luis schedules a ten-minute end-of-shift note and saves the building-access number offline in case his badge fails. The learner saves a first-week calendar and daily closeout template with one disruption plan and notes the evidence or assumption behind the choice so it can be reviewed and improved later.
Inspect before you move on.
- The finished work visibly includes a first-week calendar and daily closeout template with one disruption plan.
- You tested the work against this common failure: Filling every minute with tasks and leaving no time to learn, recover, ask questions, or handle access problems.
- Another person could verify this mastery standard: The plan fits the actual schedule and includes a visible way to catch a missed instruction or blocked task.
Your deliverable
A first-week calendar and daily closeout template with one disruption plan.
Watch for this
Filling every minute with tasks and leaving no time to learn, recover, ask questions, or handle access problems.
Prove it—don’t just recognize it.
The plan fits the actual schedule and includes a visible way to catch a missed instruction or blocked task.
Quick knowledge check
Answer from the lesson—not from confidence alone. Score at least 2 of 3 to unlock completion.
This curriculum-aligned check is scored automatically and stored with your account when signed in. It is an objective learning signal, but it has not yet been independently validated as a standardized assessment.
Tools, templates, and references
Pass the knowledge check above first.
Completion unlocks after a score of 2 out of 3. Then confirm that you produced the lesson deliverable.
Go to the knowledge check