We’re into a stressful time of the year, and prioritizing tasks may not be top of mind for you right now. But it’s worth thinking about, especially if the stress is really starting to build.
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ARTICLE:
The skill of prioritizing can be a key tool in your ability to manage stress. It allows you to look at a set of tasks and determine which are the most important.
You’ll put your focus on completing those first at the expense of those lower on the list.
It isn’t about working smarter, it’s about dedicating your time to the correct tasks.
When you have a list of things to do you think that you won’t have the energy (or the time) to get through them all. So, a lot of it will get left undone and you’ll be left feeling guilty about what you couldn’t get to.
But when you take the time to prioritize them you ditch the guilt. You’re more efficient.
It seems as though there’s an 80/20 rule in every aspect of life and prioritizing is no different. In this case, the rule states that 80% of your activities contribute under 20% of your value of work.
Focus on completing 20% of your tasks (the most important ones of course). This way you’ll achieve more.
This should make your working life run a bit more smoothly and allow you to spend more quality time with your family (or yourself!).
The Trick To Prioritization
Well, there actually isn’t a trick. It’s all about choosing what you should be doing and what you shouldn’t be doing.
High priority tasks should be taken care of first. No doubt you’ll have more energy to do them at the start of your day anyway.
To achieve this, though, you need to be able to see what tasks or projects are of greatest importance. These jobs will help you achieve long-term goals, or have a consequence for not completing.
You might be thinking that everything on your list is important – they’re all urgent. But in the big picture many of the activities you consider urgent are not.
Good prioritizing lets you finish the most urgent/important tasks early in the day. Then you can shift your focus to the non-priority tasks.
These are more than likely the jobs you find most rewarding. It’s human nature to put off tasks that aren’t enjoyable and instead indulge your enjoyable tasks.
You can put tasks in order of importance to keep yourself on track or categorize them. The choice is yours and you should choose whichever method would serve you best.
You can have a list of A tasks, B tasks, and C tasks. Of course, anything in the A category should be completed first and then you can move onto the B’s and then the Cs.
While you make your list question yourself about tasks you can delegate or remove.
Wrenches In The Mix
What about unplanned activities? They can throw a wrench into the works. These types of tasks crop up all the time and often throw your day out of whack.
You have to rely on your instinct in these situations. When you’re better at prioritizing, you’ll be more confident making judgment calls.
But consider your goals and determine how best to fit in unplanned activities.
How effectively you handle these situations will depend on how clear you are on your goals.
JohnK 12-11-2018
Overheard: “Action expresses priorities.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
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