Prioritising Your Day
The majority of my posts are feeling sparse lately. I don’t know if it’s the building pile of work I’m dealing with behind the scenes or that my heart just isn’t it any more.
It’s hard to see as a reader, but my writing bursts are often brief. I smash out three months worth of posts in one sitting then spend the rest of my time focusing on social, my clients, my full time job, or playing around with titles and committing to nothing. It’s a weird approach, and I am nowhere near as productive as I once was. But there’s more things going on in life now.
As someone who started their blog and business a month before covid, I can see a huge difference in my approach compared to two years ago. Change is natural, but going from an abundance of time to no time at all can be challenging. Especially when you’re trying to balance multiple different things, and still enjoy life in your early 20’s.
Hence why I tried to zero in on a range of productivity tools over the past 2 years, I bought a Filofax, I invested in Notion, and I inhaled the four hour work week. All of them had varied degrees of success when I was trying to find ways to prioritise my day, but I still had to actively choose to reach for them. They could easily be forgotten or the notifications cleared in favor of more relaxing tasks.
But something that we all forget, is that the balance can be struck between both. There is a way to get your work done at the end of the day and still have time to relax.
Prioritise.
Time management isn’t a brand new concept. But so many of us are horrible at actually putting it into practise in our lives. It’s easy to just hammer out your to do list in the space of one day, and proceed to crash for the following for. But why should life be a mix of overworking and mental overload.
It shouldn’t. Which is why this week I want to talk about some of the best ways to prioritise your day. Whilst I’m no master of organisation, I do try my best. So whilst I might not be able to put all of these into practice just yet…I will be very soon.
1. Collect a list of all your tasks.
Pull together everything you could possibly consider getting done in a day. Don’t worry about the order or the number of items upfront. This will help you frame up how and when to allocate your time wisely.
2. Identify urgent vs. important.
The next step is to see if you have any tasks that need immediate attention. We’re talking about work that, if not completed by the end of the day or in the next several hours, will have serious negative consequences (missed client deadline; missed publication or release deadlines, etc.).
Allocate time to prioritizing your most urgent tasks earlier in the day. If you push these to a later period, you’re at risk of being too busy as the day runs on. Prioritizing based on urgency also alleviates some of the stress when approaching a tight deadline or high pressure workload demands.
Check to see if there are any high-priority dependencies that rely on you finishing up a piece of work now. Be sure to contact any member of your team that can help finish any dependencies earlier in the day.
3. Assess the value of your tasks.
Take a look at your important work and identify what carries the highest value to your business and organization. As a general practice, you want to recognize exactly which types of tasks are critical and have top priority over the others.
For example, focus on client projects before internal work; setting up the new CEO’s computer before re-configuring the database; answering support tickets before writing training materials, and so on. Another way to assess value is to look at how many people are impacted by your work. In general, the more people involved or impacted, the higher the stakes.
Below are some helpful references to assess the value and importance of your tasks.
Critical priorities are time sensitive and high value. These include tasks dealing with crises or strict client deadlines.
High value tasks that are not time sensitive should be considered high priorities. These are tasks that involve thinking, planning and collaboration.
Medium priorities can be time sensitive but not high in value. Meetings, email communications, and project organizing can fall into this category.
Low priority projects and tasks are ones that are not time sensitive and do not have high value. You can push these priorities later in the week or drop them entirely.
4. Order tasks by estimated effort.
If you have tasks that seem to tie for priority standing, check their estimates, and start on whichever one you think will take the most effort to complete. Productivity experts suggest the tactic of starting the lengthier task first. But, if you feel like you can’t focus on your meatier projects before you finish up the shorter task, then go with your gut and do that. It can be motivating to check a small task off the list before diving into deeper waters.
5. Be flexible and adaptable.
Uncertainty and change are given. Know that your priorities will change, and often when you least expect them to. So plan for the unexpected. But—and here’s the trick—you also want to stay focused on the tasks you’re committed to completing. While working on such tasks, try to forecast other project requirements that will follow your priorities so you can better prepare for what lies ahead.
6. Know when to cut.
Be realistic. You probably can’t get to everything on your list. After you prioritize your tasks and look at your estimates, cut the remaining tasks from your list, and focus on the priorities that you know you must and can complete for the day. While cutting your prioritization list down, focus on the main things that will bring you feelings of accomplishment for the day. Then take a deep breath, dive in, and be ready for anything.