How to Prioritize Your Career and Personal Life in 7 Steps

Remember that you recently answered the question "How are you?" To your friends. You may have said that you are "very busy" or that you have "a lot of things to do and have no time for yourself." These are typical answers. Unfortunately, only a few people know how to manage time wisely. We waste precious minutes on nonsense and realize our mistakes when it's too late. As a result, we either greatly simplify the goals, or simply do not achieve them.

Imagine getting up early in the morning to catch an important work meeting, and the night before, you accidentally discover a new interesting series. You watch it midnight, wake up much later than you should, and rush to work without having time to prepare. It's all to blame for the incorrect designation of priorities. Instead of playing episode after episode, you could go to bed early, wake up in a good mood, and tune in to a meeting.

Why is it important to prioritize

The philosophy of the correct use of time is simple - you need not worry that there is not enough of it, but focus on how to make the most of it. And the only way to do this is to learn how to correctly prioritize.

Of course, you've heard about this before. But how often did you actually sit down and prioritize your daily tasks? This needs to be done regularly for several reasons.

If you have to do a lot of things every day, you can't do without a system that will help you cope with everything. Priority makes it possible to distribute tasks in order, depending on their importance. And this method leads to positive changes:

• Increases productivity. When we identify the most important tasks and take the time to complete them, our performance improves significantly, which means that we do more than usual.
• Reduces levels of anxiety and stress. When we have a huge list of tasks, and there is not much time left, we begin to worry. Prioritization helps you to shorten your to-do list and use your time wisely.
• Expands the possibilities. When we focus on the most important things, we reach our goals faster and notice new directions for growth.

What helps prioritize

1. Understand the value of tasks

Before sorting tasks, you need to determine the level of importance of each of them. To do this, ask yourself what exactly you will get as a result. There are three types of value:

• Instant. For example, when you call a colleague to find out important information for a project you are currently working on.
• Short-term. This is illustrated by tidying up the desktop - documents will be perfectly sorted until the clutter forms again.
• Long-term. Let's say you want to lose weight and sign up for a gym; to see the result, you have to sweat for several months.

When you invest in your time, fill your days and hours with action, you make them valuable to your future. Therefore, understand what is important to you, and then act.

2. Get rid of unnecessary tasks

We rarely plan our daily activities ourselves, so our brain automatically does it for us and prioritizes tasks, only unconsciously. Some of them bring us closer to our goals, others do not give any visible results. That is why it seems to us that we are constantly busy - not all our actions are connected with what we want in the future. As a result, we waste our time on unnecessary things. For many, this turns into a hackneyed record and is repeated over and over again, every day, month and year.

Imagine a simple scenario. You are going to the USA for a week. This is your first visit to the country, so you want to do a lot - see the main attractions and eat at the best restaurants. Examining the country itself and travel related issues can be a little confusing. Where to begin? Buy a plane ticket? To book a hotel? What if you like a hotel that is too far from the attractions? Then maybe it's better to first make a list of places you want to visit?

So many questions can make your head spin. That's what prioritization is for. Write down all your questions, get rid of those that contain minor worries, and act.

3. Divide tasks into categories

Another question that greatly facilitates the prioritization process: what is your goal? The answer will help to clearly spell out the tasks and ways to solve them. Once your to-do list is complete, divide it into three categories:

• Definitely done. These tasks are extremely important to achieve the goal. They need to be completed first of all, not sparing resources and time. Taking the example of a trip to America, ticket purchases and hotel reservations fall into this category.
• Worth making. This includes everything that is important but not critical. If you ignore such tasks, the result will be slightly diminished. For example, if you do not make a list of attractions in advance, you can forget about some of them during the trip.
• Nice to do. These are optional tasks that do not affect the outcome of the case in any way. For example, small questions from the category "which cap to take with you to the United States, and which one to leave at home."

A list of tasks by category will help free up time and manage it wisely. Moreover, it is suitable for any area of ​​life: it does not matter if you work full time, look after children, or combine both.

4. Arrange tasks in order

The next step is to count the number of tasks and distribute them in order. This is especially useful when you have several tasks in the same category at once.

Re-evaluate the importance of the tasks within each group. So you will understand what is worth tackling in the first place. Do not forget about one of the main principles of prioritization - the point is not in the number of tasks completed, but in the quality of execution.

5. Create master list

You can't prioritize tasks correctly if you keep them in your head. This is where the master list comes in - a summary list of all things to do. Add them to notes on your phone or document on your computer, categorize them, and arrange them in order. This way you can easily add items and make changes as needed.

6. Use different methods of productivity

If the master sheet doesn't help you figure out what to postpone and what to do now, try other productivity methods. For example, use the Pareto principle, which says that 20% of the effort is 80% of the result. Or look at the Eisenhower Matrix, which proposes to divide tasks into four categories: urgent and important, urgent and unimportant, non-urgent and important, and non-urgent and unimportant. Or choose any othermethod convenient for you.

7. Develop a strategy

Once you've prioritized things, you'll need to decide on a strategy for completing them. It is best to start with the largest and most difficult, but paramount tasks. Dealing with them will energize you and inspire you to move on.

Effective time management is just a piece of a huge puzzle of changes you can make towards a better future. Difficulties usually arise not because of one wrong decision, but because of a whole chain of events. If you are unhappy with how your destiny is shaping up, it's time to reconsider what and how you do it. Change the course of your thoughts and your life will be transformed.