Find Time For Your To Do List-Prioritizing

The Time Finder with Paula Eder

The way you use your time is the way you live your life.

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Posted on August 18, 2009, under Time Priorities.

Finding time to set your time priorities is a key time management skill – and one that we often don’t actually get to in the rush of daily life! Last week we introduced a Time Finder series about some of the challenges of managing and following through on to-do lists. Finding time for planning was our focus on Friday, and you can read that post here.

Next up? Setting priorities! This is a huge topic, and we certainly won’t be exploring all of it here. But if you want to be in charge of your time choices and avoid falling into the trap of responding reactively to time challenges, you’ll want to look at how and what you prioritize.

A key step in setting priorities is, first and foremost, to set aside time to do it! That may seem very obvious, but without the time to do it, you will never make a start on setting priorities for yourself. And the time you invest in this up front will stand you in good stead as you navigate the challenges of your day!

In our planning post, we talked about how planning is like scanning the landscape from up in the air. Prioritizing is a further refinement of this tool. As you work through your list of tasks for the day, list them in order of importance. Things you may want to consider will be questions like: What will happen if I don’t get this done today? How many people will be affected? Am I responding to others’ urgency or is this a priority for me, too?

It may also be helpful for you to work on your priorities using a computer. It will be easier to move things around as you juggle your priorities. You can certainly do the same by hand, but the computer makes it much easier.

I like to work with categories, as I prioritize. Think about the large categories of activities and responsibilities that you have in your life, and be sure to include self care as one of your categories! You will learn a lot as you prioritize these shorter lists and survey the busy landscape of your life. You may note the need to introduce more balance, for example.

Do you already prioritize tasks in your daily life? Is it something you’d like to start doing? I’d love to hear how it goes for you … so please feel invited to drop me a line!

What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up and download The New Finding Time Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!

Let’s explore time together …