Ever looked at your fingers and wondered why they are different heights? There is a lesson we can learn from that. Just as all our fingers are useful but not the same height, so are the activities in our lives. This includes all things in life. As much as we feel the need to do every thing that pops into our minds, not everything can done at the same time. This is not procrastinating but rather prioritizing. By prioritizing, you lay out all of the tasks at hand, and deal them in order of their importance. This can mean the difference between scoring a client, or making a deadline. Although it can be a struggle managing priorities before they manage you, we are here to help!
Here are some tips to help you with managing priorities before they manage you:
1. Define Priorities
This is defining what is most important. The easiest way to complete this step is to take all the tasks and ideas flying though our head and write them down on paper. Now we can see everything we have to do and rank each task based on what is most important to least important. Also, determining deadlines can help us to know what should have priority over others.
2. Plan
Take time to plan your day in advance. Having a to-do list or putting each task on your calendar in order of importance helps with this step. Allot more than enough time for each task to avoid overloading your day.
3. Delegate
Instead of cursing at the stack of work that awaits us, we should delegate. Assign all the work that can be done easily without constant supervision to employees. These tasks can have a low or high priority ranking. The goal of this step is to reduce stress, not create more! Thus, allowing others to do easier work permits us to focus on tasks that have very high priority.
4. Control Distractions
Distractions have a way of side tracking us and therefore disturbing our thought process. The whole point of prioritizing is to enable us to meet our goals comfortably. If we do not deal with distractions then it defeats the whole point of prioritizing. We have to find ways to limit our distractions, whether it be telling coworkers to leave us alone for some time or even using earplugs. Everyone is different and has different ways to stay concentrated, so we must find what suits us the best.
These basic steps, though they may seem trivial, can make or break your deadline. After a while, prioritizing will be a second nature! For more information regarding keeping a organized and successful business, continue to browse our blogs on https://secretaryofstatefiling.com, or like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SecretaryOfStateFiling. We would love to hear from you! Now its your turn to start managing priorities before they manage you!
