Topic of the day
Prioritisation
Plan > Focus > Execute
Be more efficient at work and spend time doing the things you love.
When it comes down to it, there are three challenges that we all face in a work day.
- The first is knowing what to do, how we should spend our time.
- The second is planning our day and making sure we do the tasks we’ve identified in step 1 at a suitable time.
- Finally, it’s execution. Crushing procrastination and making sure we complete our tasks to a high standard.
If you can do all these things, every day then you will be successful.
It sounds simple and while there is a lot more to consider, in effect productivity comes down to these three things. Everything else is just a distraction or is associated to one of these things.
In today’s newsletter I’m going to address perhaps the most fundamental of these and the one that people often fail to understand clearly.
Prioritisation
Working out which tasks to work on.
It sounds easy, but having a clear plan is often left to chance.
Do you start with a series of small tasks first to build your momentum? Do you sort your tasks by deadline and work on the ones that need to be finished urgently? Or do you just go with your gut approach, see how you’re feeling, and do the thing that “feels right”?
In reality, all of these can be effective. There are quite a few ways to prioritise your work and knowing which is best for you is often a challenge.
Like many things, there is a better way. Having a system to prioritise will help you in several ways:
(1) It drives consistency - this means less mental overhead on trying to take decisions. If you have a clear way of prioritising then you don’t have to waste time.
(2) It gives you clarity - you know what is coming and why you have to do it. This helps you avoid procrastination. There is one thing to do, you should just do it.
(3) It reduces potential anxiety and stress - knowing that you're doing the right and making the best use of your time will support your mental health.
The first challenge most of us have is realising just how important prioritisation is.
We typically aren’t taught it at school because our days, weeks, and what we need to learn are mapped out for us. While we get more freedom and some autonomy if we go to university or college, there is still a set syllabus to work on and exams to aim for.
The first time we start at work, we usually have some tasks to do, but it’s up to us to work out how to do them and most of us just muddle along or do what we think everyone else does.
The second problem we have is developing a system we can rely on, use every day, and improve as we go.
We’re not taught how to build a system or process and iterate and improve it. It’s something that continually amazes me as I’ve learned more about personal productivity. Some people work it out and others don’t. There is very little education out there unless you are proactive and look for it.
The final challenge we have is knowing how to do it.
Like I said at the start, there are many different ways of prioritising your task list. And this is something that’s personal. We’re all a bit different, we adapt and learn in different ways, we perform at our best at different times of the day, and adopting a work system is just the same.
What works for me, might not work for you.
This means it is best to try several things for yourself and see what has the best impact. And that means experimentation.
Experimentation means you need to be willing to try things, check to see if they’re working, and be willing to either change the approach or abandon it and try something else. It is mindset that you need to develop. Many of us just expect things to work out and get frustrated when they don’t. I know, I’ve been there! When I started out writing this newsletter, several of the writing systems I read about just didn’t work for me.
Let's say you are ready to try different systems and see what works. How do you do that?
It's okay. I’ve got you covered.
I’m going to share 3 different ways to prioritise your tasks. I’ve tried all of them and they’ve worked well for me. I suggest you try them out and see how you get on.
The key to working with a system and developing it to work for you is to make time to inspect it. This means trying it out for several days or a week and then reflecting on what you’ve learned.
Ask yourself if it works and if there is something you can do to improve it. Then make the change and try again. Review a few days or a week later and see what impact the changes have made. This is how I’ve learned to customise a system.
Okay, ready? Here are 3 prioritisation approaches you can try:
1 - The Eisenhower Matrix
Probably the most well known. You can search online and find details of the 2x2 grid used to plan tasks. The axis are importance and urgency. For each task you have to evaluate how important and how urgent it is. Sounds easy, but in reality it can be quite tricky.
Here’s what I recommend:
- Start with your list of tasks
- Sort the list by importance - how important is each one? Remember, this is not how long it will take or when you have to complete it by.
- When you’ve done that, separate the list into a top half (most important) and bottom half (least important).
- Put the bottom half to one side for now.
- Of the tasks in the top half, the most important, re-sort them by urgency. Ask yourself which needs to be done first.
- When you’ve done that, separate in-half again, you'll have the must urgent and less urgent.
- You now have 3 lists of tasks: (1) Important & Urgent, (2) Important but less urgent, and (3) Not important.
- Work on your tasks in this order.
2 - Momentum Building
This is good if you struggle to get started at the beginning of the day. I’ve found it particularly helpful at beating procrastination. It gives me a sense of “moving the needle” and getting things done. I like to physically cross things off a list and this approach is great for that.
Here’s how it works:
- Sort your task list into the following categories: quick, medium, and long.
- Quick tasks are typically things you can do in under 10 minutes - such as booking a meeting, setting the agenda, and sending invites or batch replying to 5 emails.
- Medium tasks take up to 1 hour. It might be reviewing a document or report. Updating a slide deck or preparing for a meeting or call.
- Finally, the long tasks are the more complicated ones that could be a small project.
- Now plan your day as follows - start by working on 3 quick tasks, don’t worry which ones just get going and cross them off. When you’ve done that you can move on to 2 medium tasks. Finally, plan to work on 1 big task per day.
3 - The 3-3-3 method
I wrote about this on LinkedIn this week. It's from Oliver Burkeman (author of Four Thousand Weeks - a decent book on productivity). This framework will help you have a simple and achievable daily goal. It's groups your day into 3 separate blocks of work that you complete one at a time.
Here's how it works:
- Start your day with 3 hours of focused work.
- Work on a important of tasks that require concentration.
- Then do 3 short or simple tasks.
- Reply to emails, send the report out, plan the meeting.
- 3 things you can do in under 30 mins (each).
- Finally do 3 "activities".
- These should not be work related!
- Three things that are more like chores or things you need to get done in life. For example: tidy the office, workout, clean the car or grocery shopping.
By picking one of these systems, you'll bring clarity to what you are supposed to be doing each day. Spending some time up front to work this out will make things go more smoothly.
At present, I'm using something that a hybrid between all three. I tried them out and took the bits I liked. And that is the key - find what works for you.
Did you enjoy this issue? If you think someone else might benefit please consider sharing it with them. Also, if you have any comments or questions then I’d love to hear from you. Either email me or send a DM on LinkedIn.
Thank you for subscribing, have a great weekend, and I’ll see you next week.
Mike
