Time Track Thursday: 6 Powerful Prioritization Tips

We know we should be working in Quadrant 2 and that list making can help us prioritize. Here are 6 more tips to help you prioritize with power.

1. Actually use your planner. Write down your priorities and plans in your organizer so you can always have them with you.
2. Have some flexibility. Plan your day around tasks that must be done at a certain time (meetings, your favorite workout time). Delegate and simplify if possible.
3. Eat your ugliest frog. Mark Twain came up with this phrase, and he recommends tackling the things you hate to do first thing in the morning. It feels great to get it out of the way, and you can spend the rest of the day doin what you love.
4. Rule with an iron fist. Schedule the important things and stick to your plan. Dinner with friends, craft time, and a child's school play are just as important as big meetings. It's ok to say "I'm busy."
5. Use your prime time wisely. You know that time when you have the most energy and tend to do your best work? Well that's a great time to do your most important work as well.
6. Give yourself a time out. This can be used in conjunction with your prime time. Minimize interruptions for an hour by turning off the phone, closing your email, TweetDeck, Facebook, and even the door. Take a few moments to reflect as well.

Next week I'll have a list of questions that time management experts constantly ask themselves. Maybe you can apply one or think of your own to help you spend you time wisely. Until then, eat ugly frogs and go to time out!

Time Track Thursday: List Making

We know from last week's post that we need to do the most important things first. All time management experts suggest making lists to organize all those important things. I like to get everything out of my head and on paper so I can focus on a task without worrying about everything I might forget to do. Here is a list of the lists that I keep handy:

• Monthly goals based on my Master Plan (which was created by planning backwards)
  
• daily to-do list with tasks I must accomplish to reach those goals
• Checklist of my recurring activities (ex. I do link-building on Mondays, check Facebook on Fridays, and write my newsletter once a month)
• A sticky note on my computer with the most important thing I need to do to call it a productive day, even if I don't get anything else accomplished

It's also a good idea to prioritize your lists using the ABC system. Rank each item as A=high priority, B= medium priority, or C=low priority. You can color code them if that works better for you. Don't fall into the trap of spending more time creating lists than you do on crossing things off. Again, crossing off more As is better than crossing off as many items as you can.

Time Track Thursday #8

Now that I've gotten you to plan backwards, it's time to do some prioritizing. Do the important things you need to reach your goals first, and these are not always the things you want to do. I'd rather make some more projects into tutorials instead of filling out my LLC paperwork, but it has the highest priority at the moment.

Today's biggest focus: Do the most important thing first!




I'm sure many of you are familiar with Stephen Covey's Time Management Matrix. This is a friendly reminder that we should all be spending most of our time in Quadrant 2: important but not urgent. Occasional urgency is ok, but don't let it run your life. Activities in Quadrant 2 significantly and positively affect our lives, the quadrant in which our dreams and goals are. Next week I'll have some great tips to help you prioritize more effectively.