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Prioritizing your work is an extremely important part of being successful. By sorting and organizing your work based on its priority, you will find it easier to finish; you’ll be less likely to procrastinate.

Being clear on what needs to be done and the most efficient order for finishing your tasks is the best way to begin your day. There are several ways you can prioritize your tasks. The way you decide to prioritize is up to you. Everyone works best in a slightly different way. Here are a couple of helpful techniques:

1. Prioritize according to the:

·  due date/deadline;

·  biggest return on investment;

·  weight of importance;

·  implications/impacts/consequences of delaying (to yourself or others)

·  easiest to implement;

·  length of time estimated it will take to complete;

·  resources needed and their availability;

·  what you’re most passionate about; or,

·  rank order of importance.

2. Do a brain dump the night before and list everything you need to accomplish the next day. Review any paperwork, emails and future deadlines and add any additional items to your list.
3. Start by clearing your mail, emails and your desktop then work with a fresh start.
4. Complete first things first (a.k.a., Stephen Covey’s four quadrants: Urgent & Important (crying baby, ringing telephone, heart attack, fire, and other things you have to deal with); Urgent & Unimportant (most interruptions and distractions); Not Urgent & Important (planning, exercise, rest, and other things that are important for your success and well-being); Non-Urgent & Unimportant (time wasting, addictions and other senseless activities)
5. Begin with a short to-do list of items you want/need to get done and can realistically accomplish in a day. Once you finish that list, add more items, moving to the next day any that you do not finish. (Be sure to break larger tasks into do-able bites)
6. Re-adjust priorities during the day as needed to remain focused on your top priorities.
7. Start! When your plate is full and may seem daunting or overwhelming, the important key is to get started. You can start small and move along as you complete each project; start with whatever is bothering you the most; or start with the first thing you see.
8. When someone else gives you work, ask about his/her priority level.

Failing to prioritize your work load usually results in being extremely inefficient, ineffective, unproductive, and extremely stressed out. Prioritizing at work is usually a constant juggling and re-balancing act. Unfortunately, you probably cannot predict which tasks will be assigned, but if you adopt some of the techniques listed above you will be able to more masterfully create your own system of prioritization.

How many times have you thought to yourself or said out loud: "I have so much to do today, how am I ever going to get it all done?"

What are the techniques that have worked for you??

The Priority Pro helps busy professionals gain clarity, focus and direction so they can accomplish more of what matters most.

Look around you….

Are there piles mounting, a growing to-do list, unresolved relationship issues, or cluttered cabinets, drawers and closets?

If so, tend to these before they accumulate. As they build up, they become increasingly overwhelming and time-intensive to eliminate or at least alleviate. It becomes harder to sort and de-clutter larger stacks and piles. Relationship issues tend to grow into more complicated problems when they are avoided rather than handled effectively and resolved.

Picture a plate that’s piled high with food to the point that it’s brimming over. Food is falling on the floor. Gravies and sauces are blending together to make tastes that are unpalatable. Your once enormous appetite is slowly fading to stomach pains at the thought of having to devour all this food.

This analogy is reticent of how you may be accumulating your work, issues and other activities.

Instead, focus on taking things off your plate by prioritizing and accomplishing tasks and delegating or outsourcing most others. Although you may never have a totally clean plate at the end of the day, week, month or year, by removing things from your plate you’re able to minimize the time and energy spent thinking about something or getting it done.

Too often, we allow ourselves to get distracted and off-task, especially when we have unpleasant, routine or boring tasks to complete. These tasks, like opening mail, responding to emails, filing, record-keeping, and more tend to keep piling up if not addressed in a timely manner. If you really must do these things your self (either because you have no one to delegate it to; have no budget to hire anyone; want to learn how to do it because it’s important for your professional development; or, for some other relevant reason) then, clearly define what it is you need to do. For example, rather than thinking “I need to prepare the spreadsheet”, rephrase it to “I need to gather the numbers from the other departments to input into the spreadsheet.” This clarity helps you focus on the task at-hand. Additionally, as in this example, understand how the numbers will be used, why it’s important and who will be viewing the data. Having a greater depth of understanding helps drive the importance of the different tasks on your plate vying for your time and energy. Understand what you have to gain by getting through each task, too.

Getting motivated and staying on task is important. It’s easier to get motivated to do a smaller task rather than a large task. You won’t need to set aside nearly as much time to complete smaller tasks either. The more often you do them, the easier they become because they become much more routine.

You may not accomplish everything on your plate today! However, if you more reasonably fill your plate rather than allowing things to pile on, you’ll be able to accomplish more of it without having things pile up and accumulate. Get motivated and stay on task!

Have you even been working on a project and suddenly started thinking about another project or task? Before you realize it, you jump over to that other task and then the phone rings and you’re working on something else. Then, someone drops by with a question, you get an email, and you’re now involved with multiple unfinished tasks. Later you realize that you never finished the project you began initially because you were pulled off task. You then begin to question if the task you're working on is what’s most important. Your focus and energy is scattered as you move between multiple tasks.

If this scenario (or something else quite similar) sounds familiar, you’re not alone! However, working in this fashion diminishes your ability to operate at your best. Clarity and focus provide the structure to help you increase your successes.

A client I’m currently working with is a physician who recently opened a private practice. During the last three months of working together she’s been able to limit her stress by reducing her habit of procrastinating and shifting her perspective away from perfection. It wasn’t easy but she was motivated to produce more positive energy and to feel more in control of her life.  She created more realistic standards for herself and delivery of her reports to other doctors without compromising the quality of her patient care. She established a more structured schedule of regular tasks so that she had a set time to accomplish some of the expected routine responsibilities. She’s become more organized and she protects her time from superfluous conversations and over-commitments that pull her away from her goals.  She’s learned to be more fully present and focused!

Like this client, you can learn to manage your work flow and you life more effectively. Having a good coach, consultant, counselor or therapist can be invaluable to help you gain clarity and be more confident in how you’re investing your time and energy. Having accountability to someone else, especially if you’re a sole practitioner, business owner or entrepreneur helps establish structure for sustained success.  As an employee, your priorities are normally driven by the business objectives and how your work ties into that.

Making choices is far easier when you know your priorities.  How do you set and maintain your priorities? Do you know your most important goals? How do you sort out the projects that will provide the greatest payoff? How do you prevent yourself from being pulled off task continually? How do you spend more of your time on the projects and tasks that are your top priorities?

Remember, clarity leads to power. The more clarity you have, the more powerful you feel.  When you have more focus on what matters most, you’re able to spend your time on those tasks and produce better results. 

In my last BLOG, I shared some reports about the drastic decline in employee job satisfaction. In this BLOG post I will share some observations and strategies for increasing the prospect of job satisfaction, even in a doom economy.

In my experiences working with people both employed and unemployed, I’ve found that many people have not taken responsibility for their own career growth. When I worked for years in the corporate world, over two decades ago, we were told that the company was no longer responsible for our career growth but rather we were responsible for creating our own. Many employees had a difficult time adapting to this new way of thinking because they were used to earlier times when they created a career plan and followed it within one company.

Strategy: Own your career! Seek out the right opportunities for your interest and abilities both inside and outside the company. Have a career plan.

I’ve also seen people get complacent. They stopped taking continuing training and development and looking for opportunities to expand their skills and network of contacts. They didn’t have an up-to-date resume and couldn’t remember the last time they had a job interview. Often, with training budgets being cut, employees blamed the lack of funding for their discontinuance of learning and professional development.

Strategy: Keep learning & growing. If there’s a skill you want to develop, look for opportunities, to build and demonstrate that skill, even if it’s outside of the workplace. Having new skills in diverse areas may help distinguish you while increasing your job satisfaction. Enroll in classes. Meet new people. Challenge yourself!

Often, people dissatisfied at work are also unhappy at home. People allow their work grind to follow them home. It is possible to improve your life even if you can't improve your work.

Strategy: Instead of letting your work displeasures to invade your home, invest in your private life and create a happiness that can make work more palatable. Consciously create fond family memories, indulge in a hobby, 'date' your spouse or partner, take classes, or enrich your life in other ways! Make laughter a part of your every day life.

Lastly, people feel stuck at their dissatisfying job. They don’t believe they have an out so they don’t look for other opportunities. Unfortunately, whatever you believe becomes true for you based on your thoughts and actions. In this case, it would be the inaction of looking for other career prospects.

Strategy: Seek out alternative job opportunities while you are still gainfully employed. You are more likely to ask the right questions and not take something out of desperation or fear. Also, in the meantime, find ways to change your current job even if your actual job description or boss can’t change. Your perception and your attitude can change and that by itself can make a world of difference with your job satisfaction.

Want to be more satisfied at work?  Then, create more happiness and satisfaction!