Priorities guide and sustain you.
Priorities are like your guiding star.
And finding time by prioritizing is a powerful time management tool.
Once you’ve compiled your list of tasks, it’s time to place them in order of priority.
But things get a little more complicated when it’s not just you who needs to follow through. That’s when you need to take a closer look and make sure you’re aware of all the in’s and out’s of your priorities
Step 1: Look at your ongoing tasks and decide which are the most important…
An ongoing task might be a budget report that you need to submit to your boss by the third Tuesday of each month. It suggests high priority because it deals with money.
It’s going to be a high priority because it deals with money.
Step 2: Look closer…
If this task can be accomplished by simply integrating daily financial records, it probably doesn’t take very long to do. While important, it wouldn’t be your highest monthly priority. However, if your report requires integrating information from your team of six people …and you don’t receive their reports until the day before your report is due … this task becomes “time-limited” and therefore a high priority.
However, if your report requires integrating information from your team of six people, and you don’t receive their reports until the day before your report is due, this task becomes “time-limited” and therefore a high priority.
Step 3: Look for dependencies…
When you’re dependent on something from other people to complete your task, as in the above example, its level of difficulty increases. That’s because the variables increase. The more dependencies involved in a task, the more it becomes a priority.
The more dependencies involved in a task, the more complex it is, and that raises its priority level.
When you sort your priorities this way, you create a system. This, in turn, helps you assure that your highest priorities or responsibilities are recognized and get addressed first.
Try this for yourself, and let me know how it goes.
And here’s something more to help you with this…
Want to get back on track with your priorities and your time?
Well, we have 17 Priority Power™ Questions for you that help you get to the core of what’s holding you back AND identify what’s truly important to you.
“Why Can’t I Find My Direction?” 17 Priority Power™ Questions to Serve as Your Compass is an immediately downloadable e-book that helps you unlock the time wisdom that you hold in your hands and put it to use as you work toward realizing your dreams and goals.
Click this link to learn more about “Why Can’t I find My Direction” and access your Priority Power™.
Let’s explore time together …
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