Another busy Monday is here. How are we going to get through it all? What are the most important things on our task list? Good news! Today we discuss a great strategy of prioritizing your tasks and life to help make it all make sense. This one exercise can have a revolutionary impact on your business and life. Listen to find out how. Check out the website for more content www.bcbousa.com
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Full Recap:
Monday is back, and it has a lot for us to do! How are we going to get through it all? With some organization of course! As we do on most Mondays today we talk about organization and in particular prioritizing your day and your week. Prioritizing what needs to be done may be difficult sometimes, but today we are going to cover a strategy that can make a world of difference.
Many years ago during the Industrial Age, workers on an assembly line put one part on one machine over and over again. They had very few choices or decisions to make. That is not the case anymore for most workers these days – we have literally hundreds of decisions to make each day (Do I answer this email? Should I attend this meeting? Should I start working on inventory counts or marketing?).
We are also constantly interrupted in our day by our technology. Pings and dings for new emails, text messages, social media notifications, etc. The attack on our focus and attention is never ending, and prioritizing your day can go a long way in preventing burn out. We are only capable of handling so much at any particular time. The key is do your best to make sure you are focusing your time on the things that matter.
One of the steps you can take to help prioritize your day is to create priority boxes. 4 boxes that break out all of your tasks in any particular day, week or month, etc. Let’s break them down:
Box 1: Urgent and Important
These are items that are important and must be taken care of ASAP. Think of things like emergencies, putting out fires, deadlines, etc. These are items that need to be done, but with better planning in the future the goal is to have less and less items in this box moving forward.
Box 2: Important, Not Urgent
This is where you want to be focusing most of your time and energy. Items in here could include planning, working on long term goals, putting measures in place to prevent items from popping into box 1, reading, learning, developing new skills, team building, sales, etc.
Box 3: Urgent, Not Important
These are urgent items that may be important to somebody, but are not important to you. Think of emails that come in that don’t truly need your attention, items that you can delegate to others, meetings that do not require your presence, etc.
Box 4: Not Urgent, Not Important
You want to avoid spending any time working on items in this box. These are items that suck up your time without adding anything valuable to your day. Think of scrolling social media, gossiping, games on your phone, etc. Any time spent on these activities are taking time away from items in box 2 including relaxation and family time.
Implementing all of these things all at once can be difficult. Over time, with practice, learning to prioritize your day, week, month, etc. in this way will lead to more productivity, less stress, and overall success.