How to Become a Master of Prioritizing
In this life, everybody executes different things to make ends meet. It goes without saying that those activities are different, and you are supposed to deal with them according to their importance and that’s where prioritizing comes in. According to John Archibald Wheeler who is a well-known American theoretical physicist, time is a way of nature that keeps everything from happening at once. With the right techniques to join forces with time, it can be your friend but if you try to overcome time, it will definitely defeat you. Are you wondering why I’m talking about time whereas this article is about prioritizing? Well, prioritizing is all about learning how to spend your time acutely.
In your daily hustles, it is possible that you meet with people who are ever busy and can hardly talk with you as they try to meet deadlines. As much as you are pleased with their commitment, you come to realize that they don’t achieve much, and you ask yourself, how’s that even possible? To be honest, these people have exceptional work ethics but were not taught on how to prioritize their work and they end up delivering low output as they spend most of their time wandering back and forth between tasks.
I’m not sure how you spend your time in your workplace and whether you are caught in interruptions and distractions that affect your output. However, one thing I’m sure about is that during my schooling, I wasn’t taught about prioritizing my work. I had to learn it later of course in a hard way through trial and error, uncountable mistakes, and spent sleepless nights doing a research on the same. And now that I have extensive knowledge about prioritizing, I’m willing to share with you.
What you ought to know about prioritizing
I went through a lot when learning about prioritizing and because I wouldn’t want you to pass through the same, I’ll share with you all you need to know. With these three important key considerations to time management, you can work less and produce more.
Key one: Starting your day by noting all the tasks you need to complete
Each day is not like any other day and similarly, tasks to complete are different. After taking a warm shower and having your favorite hot drink, write down the tasks you need to complete, either on a notebook or in your Smartphone. The activities might include;
• To read your emails
• To write a project document
• To meet your boss for a brief session and updates
• To prepare a PowerPoint presentation
• To sort out your expenses
Key two: Assort the tasks according to their importance
It goes without saying that the activities you intend to do have different importance and you should start with the most important to the least important, that is, from the ones that will add value to your work/company to the ones which are not essential but good to finish. Therefore, you should break the activities into MUST DO, SHOULD DO, as well as GOOD TO DO. That being the case, the above tasks can be rearranged as follows;
• To prepare a PowerPoint presentation – Must do
• To write a project document – Must do
• To meet your boss for a brief session and updates – Should do
• To read your emails – Should do
• To sort out your expenses – Good to do
Key three: Start working on the highly prioritized task
After sorting out your tasks based on their importance, you can start working on highly prioritized tasks and move on to the next task and follow that sequence. That way, you’ll be able to complete all the critical tasks promptly and have some time left on you to complete your other tasks of the day.
At times, the unexpected happens and your boss might assign you urgent work when you least expect it. On such occasions, don’t panic and instead of having a breakdown, add the new task to your list accordingly and carry on working using the key strategy number three. That way, you’ll be in a good position to complete the urgent tasks and get time to complete the other tasks too.
Want to learn more about prioritizing your time, including how to determine the value in any task or action? Request your Introductory Consultation.
