Prioritising your to-do list
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When it comes to your time, I’m sure you can all agree that there just isn’t enough of it! It feels like no matter what you do, you are still working late into the evening and don’t have enough time for your friends and family.
If this sounds familiar then you have come to the right place, throughout this blog I am going to be talking about how you can prioritise your to-do list effectively and how to plan for your 2021 goals.
Important VS Priority
Lets start by defining the difference between Important and Priority. If you have a task that can have a significant impact on your long-term progress, this is usually a task that isn’t a priority. For example, creating your business plan for 2021 is never urgent, but it is still very important to your businesses growth.
Whereas, a task that has an immediate effect on your business if it isn’t completed would need to be prioritised. For example, attending a scheduled meeting with your client.
A great way to prioritise your list from Important to Priority is using the Eisenhower Matrix which helps you to decide what tasks to prioritise by urgency and importance, sorting out less urgent and important tasks which you should either delegate or not do at all that day/week.
The Eisenhower Matrix tells you to create 4 categories: Do First, Schedule, Delegate and Don’t do. The thing to remember is that the less Important list or task shouldn’t be forgotten, they can still have a big impact on your success in the long term but there is rarely any given day that these tasks are going to be urgent! So how do you ensure you get these tasks done if they are never a priority task?
The simple answer is to make them a priority… create yourself a “Business Wish List” with all the tasks that need completing in order for your business to succeed long-term. Then add 2-3 of these tasks into your diary a week, book realistic time slots for each of them to ensure you can get plenty done.
On a Friday, as I finish the week and think about next week, I take a look at my diary, add in all of the tasks I know I need to complete that week and then add in some of these wish-list tasks.
It takes me all of 10-minutes to plan my week and prioritise my tasks and you will be amazed at the difference this makes.
Some ideas of “Important” tasks for your business include:
- Create/update your business plan
- Review your business processes
- Review your own personal training plan
- Review your cashflow and how you can improve it
- Look at what your competitors are doing and learn from it
If you have an activity that is quite specific, use a more general description and each week do something different under that broader heading.
You’ll start to weed out the important vs urgent and your default week will involve focusing on the kinds of activities that are really going to make a difference in your business.
Jaxstar Solutions is a valuable resource used by Small Businesses and Corporate organisations to help in the day to day running and operational side of their business, enabling them to get back out there and do what they do best…sell their products and services to make money.
