As a project manager three most essential things which you would do at the beginning of each day ?

1-  Get a quick idea of the current situation in case anything urgent popped up and needs to be attended to

2-  Plan for the day, and what you would like to get done by the end of the day

1- See the day's work (activity list)

2- Review the work of yesterday.

3- Review the required communication for that day.

Few of the things i have observed what project managers do on regular basis while starting their daily routines is understanding whats their progress, creating a workplan to accomodate any new feature that is needed to be incorporated into the project, and look for signs to see if project is going out of the bounds of the scope and finally formulate a plan to manage risk. 

Well, a lot depends on the project, domain, person, location etc for prioritizing the tasks. But as general rule i think the below listed03 are the essential

1. Communicating - Replying to Urgent emails, accpeting meeting req. or reschedules, calling a meeting to iron out issues, etc

2. Delegating - While you are going to be busy, list out & distribute the tasks that could be delegated to colleagues / subordinates

3. Planning - Plan out your day, have an estimation of the on going tasks to be achieved,  compare yesterdays achievements & try to finish off if anything is left.

Always having a glance at the Project schedules, charts at the end of the day saves your time in planning the day ahead. 

Regards,

SAAA.