Master Your Priorities - Get More Done In Less Time

Welcome to the course, Master Your Priorities.

Let’s start with a quick introduction, and then you can get started with these effective priority setting techniques and also ideas on tailoring them to fit your needs.

• Do you have trouble getting things done?

• Are there items on your 'to-do' list that never seem to disappear?

• Do you feel like you never get closer to attaining your personal and professional goals?

  
  

Most people would answer 'yes' to these questions.

Organizing and managing tasks isn't easy for most of us.

Few people are naturals at it. But it's not something you're born with.

It's a skill that is completely learnable.

Setting priorities is extremely important in making any kind of progress in life.

Unfortunately, not many people realize just how important it is.

When you don't set priorities, you are essentially running on autopilot, doing the first thing that comes to mind rather than the thing that needs to be done the most.

It is well worth the time it takes to clarify, organize, and set priorities.

Before you start setting priorities, it's important to look at the big picture.

Identify the things you want to accomplish in the coming weeks, months or years, and work backwards from there.

You're going to take these big goals and break them down into smaller, more achievable goals.

From these smaller goals, it becomes clear what needs to be done each day and how to prioritize.

You can think of your priorities as short-term goals that help you achieve the things you want and maintain balance in your life.

Setting priorities helps you keep control over your time, energy, and resources.

There are many ways to set priorities, but here are some of the basics.

When you have a massive list of things to do and they all seem urgent, it can feel overwhelming.

One method for setting priorities is to create categories and then place your to-do items in the appropriate category.

There are several ways to do this, including the ABCDE method.

A good way to set priorities is to take your list of things to do and rank it.

This is probably the easiest way to set clear priorities.

It requires little thought; you just make a list and put the first thing first.

Take a look at your current list.

Imagine that you only have time to do one of the things on it today.

Which one item would that be?

Put that item at the top of the list and then take the remaining items and ask the same question.

Gradually, you'll move through the items on your list and at the end of this process, you'll have a list that goes from most important to least important

A good way to easily see which priorities are the most important is to rate them on a scale.

This method is effective with both professional and personal goals.

It's a slightly more complex approach than ranking or categorizing, but it can be quite helpful.

You can use this method for prioritizing daily tasks or prioritizing overall areas of your life such as career, family, finances, and so on.

The basic idea is to create a simple rating system.

You can have as many numbers on your scale as you'd like.

For example, your scale can be from 1 to 10, or it can be simpler, such as 1 to 5.

Good time management is absolutely essential for both business and personal priorities.

Once you've set your priorities and scheduled the things you need to do, you need to actually put the priorities into action. In order to do this, you need good time management skills.

When setting priorities, we often make the mistake of deciding what will get done today, and then trying to twist time to meet our needs.

A more realistic approach is to look at the time you have today and from that, decide how to go about your daily activities.

Setting priorities and managing time is just like budgeting money.

You're creating a plan that, if carried out correctly, will ensure the best possible use of your resources (in this case time instead of money).

To create a realistic budget, you first need to know how you spend your money, and the same goes for setting priorities.

You probably have an inkling of how you spend your time each day, but it's never as obvious as it seems.

The only way to know for sure is to keep track of your time.

You may be in for a few surprises.

When you're working toward specific goals, much of your stress comes from spending too much time on low priority items that keep you from reaching your goals.

When you set priorities effectively so that you're spending your time where you need to and limiting distractions, this stress disappears.

Managing distractions is an important part of being efficient.

Once you get into the flow of setting priorities, it's easy.

But there are a few common mistakes that people make usually without realizing it.

These can cut your productivity considerably or, at worst, derail your schedule entirely.

The key to successful priority setting is to always monitor your progress and make changes when they're needed.

Make sure your system is helping you get things done and if it's not, try something else.

No one solution is right for everyone, but with the basics under your belt and a few good techniques to get you started, you can create the system that's best for you.

• You now have everything you need to take conscious control over your daily list of things to do.

• You're armed with several effective priority setting techniques and ideas on tailoring them to fit your needs.

• You know how to handle distractions and how to avoid common mistakes we make when setting priorities.

You're ready to get started getting things done.

Here's to your success!