Learn the one skill that all successful people share: knowing how to prioritize at work and in life
Do you constantly feel like time is your enemy? I often feel this way on a busy day. I’m racing the clock to make it to a meeting from a late school bus pick up or trying to get 10 tasks done before I have to leave work for the day.
Why do working parents feel so frantic so often? It has to do with time and how we use it! No matter how much we might wish we had 48 hours in a day, no one can have more time. That’s why we have to use time well.
Learn how to prioritize if you want to live a successful and satisfying life.
Why is prioritizing tasks important?
It’s so important to prioritize tasks! Good prioritization is one of the most important time management techniques you can learn. Not only will you end up feeling better about your life, you’ll also perform better. There are some major benefits to prioritizing well, both at work and at home.
You will feel more fulfilled because your actions are aligned with your values
This is a big one! When people talk about prioritizing, they’re often focusing on this benefit. And it is incredibly important to make sure that our choices align with our values.
Many people go through life without truly scrutizing the choices that they’re making. Do I really need to go on that business trip over my kid’s birthday? Do I need to be the one taking every sick day with the kids or can dad/grandma/babysitter be responsible sometimes?
Each and every day of your life is full of choices, and if you have no guideline for making those choices you’ll often make decisions that aren’t really in alignment with how you want to live. You’ll end up feeling unsatisfied or like something is missing. That’s no good!
On the other hand, if you learn to prioritize based on your values system you’ll feel confident in the choices you’re making. Life will have meaning and purpose, and there’s no greater gift than that.
You will feel less stressed/overwhelmed
This is a bit mundane – but just as helpful! You won’t feel so overwhelmed when you learn to prioritize. If you can’t prioritize your tasks, everything seems important. When you develop the skills needed to triage your to-dos, you may realize that there are only a few truly must-do items on the list each day.
Realizing that some tasks can be put off to tomorrow, next week or never is incredibly freeing. The to-do list will suddenly feel manageable and the overwhelm will lift. This is especially important for working parents who have many demands on their time.
You will perform better because you will meet your commitments
Although prioritizing your tasks is great for you, it’s also great for others. I believe that people who can prioritize are star performers at work. Workers who can prioritize will regularly meet their commitments. They’ll choose the right task to work on first because they have a clear view of what’s important to the company.
If you prioritize well, you can usually spot tasks competing for your time and seek clarification. This helps you avoid over committing. It is much better to under commit and over deliver than the other way around. As a result, your colleagues will trust that you can deliver what you say you will and when.
Your relationships will be better because you will be clear on what you can do
Your personal relationships will also benefit when you prioritize clearly. It feels pretty bad to try to do too many things and fail at them all. Don’t commit to finishing a major work project on the same night your kid has a school event. (I’ve done it.)
You’ll feel like you’re letting your team down (by not responding to emails immediately) and you’ll feel like you’re letting your kid down (because you had to step out for a few phone calls). When you prioritize, you can kick that constant feeling that you’re failing everyone.
Instead, be clear up front about what you can and can’t do. For example, in the major work project vs kid school event example, you have many choices:
- “Hey, work, my kid has an event on x date. Let’s plan to wrap up the project the day before.”
- “Hey, kid, I have a major work project to finish so I won’t be able to make your event, but I know that dad and little sister are excited to be there.”
Whatever you decide, when you’re clear up front you’ve significantly reduced the bad feelings for all parties. Your kid might be a little disappointed if you tell him in advance that you can’t make it, but he’ll probably be pretty upset if you show up but aren’t really paying attention. On the work side, your co-workers may be a little annoyed about losing a day of work on the project but they’ll be able to plan for it.
It will super charge your career
I’ve managed people for 5+ years at this point and have a pretty good eye for top performers. You know what skill star employees tend to have? The ability to work on what’s important.
I have known many extremely talented people who would spend days on a mundane task that improved results by 0.5%. It’s not worth it.
When you learn to prioritize your work based on what adds the most value to your company, you make yourself extremely valuable to the company. In my mind, this benefit is very important to working parents who don’t want to work long hours each week.
Instead of working long, you can work smart. Look for the projects and tasks that bring the most value to your company, your department and your team. Then spend the majority of your time on those tasks. Your results will be massive compared to those who spend a lot of time on the fine details. And you won’t need to work 80 hours weeks to do it.
What are my top priorities in life?
Convinced that you need to learn how to prioritize ASAP? Awesome! I promise that it isn’t as hard as it seems. Before you can make good choices, you need to get clear on your life and business priorities.
This isn’t something anyone else can do for you! My priorities may be completely different than yours, and that’s 100% OK. What matters is that you decide on a vision that feels right to you.
What is your ideal life?
To get started, ask yourself what your ideal life looks like. What do you see yourself doing in 5 years? 10? 20? I find this useful because I like to think about whether I will regret something when my kids are grown.
Talk to your spouse and family (if you have older kids) about what your ideal family life looks like. Balancing the needs of each individual is as important as creating a collective family vision, so you may talk about your values for a long time.
Identify business priorities
It’s also important to think about your company’s priorities if you want to truly turbocharge your career. What does your company as a whole value that you can contribute? Your department? Your immediate team?
If you work with clients, ask yourself what it is they want. Although the specific pathways vary, you may find that the answers are pretty universal. Think carefully about your skills and how you can best support those objectives.
Take the time to do this right
You may need some time to mull this over. Talk to your family, friends and colleagues if you need to. Sometimes priorities are pretty clear but often they aren’t.
The good news is that this step is the heavy lifting. Once you have a set of life and business priorities, you have the guideposts that will help you make decisions more easily. Everyday choices will be much simpler, and you’ll feel calm and confident making them since you know you’re on the right path.
How do you organize and prioritize your life?
Now that you’ve done the hard work of thinking about your values and priorities, it’s time to apply them to your everyday life! Sometimes that’s easier said than done, though. When life gets busy, you might get overwhelmed and wonder exactly how to prioritize everything on your plate.
Fortunately, there are a couple of strategies that I’ve found really helpful over the years. I use these every day in my work life and personal life, and have used them to help colleagues who were struggling with too much to do.
Task Prioritization Matrix
The urgent/important task prioritization matrix is one of the best time management techniques. It’s also very simple! This techniques helps you prioritize according to your values. The urgent/important matrix (or Eisenhower matrix) categorizes tasks into four different quadrants:
- Urgent & Important
- Not Urgent & Important
- Urgent & Not Important
- Not Urgent & Not Important
Urgent & Important tasks occur when we’re in crisis mode – for example, you have a major client meeting tomorrow and need to finish the presentation.
Not Urgent & Important tasks cover long-term planning and strategy. Ideally you would finish your major client presentation in advance while it is still important but not urgent! In this quadrant, you feel calm and in control.
Urgent & Not Important tasks stop your workflow but aren’t critical to your priorities. An example might be non-critical email or irrelevant meetings.
Not urgent & not important tasks are things like watching TV and browsing social media. They’re probably not part of your priorities and they don’t need to be done at any particular time.
The most effective people spend 80% of their time in the not urgent/important quadrant. This gives them adequate time to prepare for important tasks, while understanding that occasionally unexpected crises arise and move them to the urgent/important quadrant.
In reality, many people spend their time “fighting fires” in the urgent/important quadrant and doing busywork in the urgent/not important quadrant. In order to be effective, try to spend more time on not urgent/important quadrant of the task prioritization matrix by planning ahead and avoiding tasks that just aren’t important to your priorities.
When overwhelmed, triage
When you’re overwhelmed, it can be hard to think straight. Your instinct might be to put your head down and plow through your to-do list. That won’t be effective, though!
Instead, take 15 minutes to triage your list. First, do a brain dump of every single task you have to do, from fixing a code defect to baking cookies for your kid’s daycare party. Got it? Everything.
Then start moving tasks to the task prioritization matrix. Decide if a task is truly important. If not, you can cross it off your list or alter it and move on. Once you’re pared down to the list of important tasks, start assessing the urgency. List the tasks in order by when they are due and how long they will take and start knocking them off.
You can grab the free printable prioritizing tasks worksheet to use in your triage step. Either print multiple copies so you’ll always have one on hand, or laminate and re-use with dry erase markers.
Communicate clearly
If you find yourself without enough information to triage, or you’re still left with too many tasks to do, it’s time to communicate.
At work, talk with your colleagues to understand the priority level of various tasks. Is there something that you could push the due date on (make it less urgent) or that the team doesn’t think is high priority (less important)? If your tasks still aren’t doable in the time you have, is there someone else on the team who can help?
At home, can you change tasks to make them easier, like buying cookies instead of baking them? Could someone else take charge of a task, like cookie buying? Is there something else that is less urgent that can be pushed to a later date, like calling the cable company? Can you outsource a task, like deep cleaning the house for your in-laws’ visit?
Choices will shift
Keep in mind that as a working parent, your choices and priorities will be in constant motion. This is not a black and white scenario where work or home always takes precedence. It’s a give and take.
On some days, you decide that you need to be at a major meeting so dad can watch the sick kid. On other days, you skip a less important meeting so you can take your kid to the dentist. Just because you prioritize work today and home tomorrow doesn’t mean that you value one over the other.
You’re the sum of your choices over time, in the long run. Never judge yourself on a day or even a week.
Learning how to prioritize is a super valuable skill
When you learn how to prioritize, you’ll feel calm and confident about your decisions. You’ll be able to think strategically and use your time effectively, contributing at work and home without running yourself ragged. The rewarding life you want can absolutely be yours – and you can still sleep!
