How To Prioritise Your Most Important Work.
This week, how to prioritise and more importantly how to decide what is a priority and what is not.
Script
Episode 142
Hello and welcome to episode 142 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.
This week I have a question I suspect was sparked by last week’s podcast on what super-productive people have in common. This week, the question is about how to prioritise your tasks and how to decide what a priority is.
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Okay, it’s time for me now to hand you over to the mystery podcast voice for this week’s question.
This week’s question comes from Tony. Tony asks: Hi Carl, I recently heard you talk about your “core” work and why you should prioritise these tasks. I understand that, but how do you decide what is important on a day to day basis?
Thank you, Tony, for your wonderful question.
This is a hard question to answer as it will be different for everyone listening. What my “core” tasks are will be very different from a person who manages a team of people all reporting to her. However, although all our “core” tasks will be different, the process of deciding what those tasks are is the same for everyone.
Firstly, to avoid any confusion your core tasks are your high-value tasks. The tasks that earn you your income. If you did not do these tasks consistently, you would lose your job or at the very least you would damage your career or if you are self-employed you would seriously damage your business.
So, examples would be if you are in sales, being in front of your customers or clients is your core—your high-value tasks. So anything you do that puts you in front of your customers is high value and a priority. That could be calling or visiting your customers. It could be prospecting for new customers or asking for referrals.
The low-value tasks in sales are completing your reports. I’ve worked with a lot of companies that insist their sales teams complete elaborate sales reporting forms every day. The only people these forms benefit are office-bound sales managers who are more concerned about keeping their sales documents up to date and who have lost sight of the important part of their team’s work—sales.
If you are in the medical field as a healthcare professional your core work is being in front of your patients. Treating them and making sure they are receiving the best care you can give them which may mean spending time each week learning about the latest medical procedures and drug breakthroughs so you can pass on these benefits to your patients.
If you struggle to see where your core work is, the clue is usually in your title. Salesperson? Your core work is sales. Healthcare professional? Your core work is taking care of the health of your patients.
Spending hours in diversity classes or IT training is not a core part of your work. Those classes may be important for the organisation—after all a diverse, culturally sensitive workplace is important as well as knowing how to operate your company’s IT platforms—but to sacrifice time for these when there are customers waiting or patients to be seen means you have your priorities the wrong way round.
So the first step is to make a list of the task you consider to be important to the work that you do. The vital, high-value tasks that complete the purpose of your work.
Now, one part of this that I feel is very important is to do the same with your long and short term goals. While it is important to make sure you have your core work prioritised, it is also important to make sure your goals are also feeding into your day. I know how easy it is to fill your day with work tasks that benefit your employer—I spent fifteen years doing that—when you do that, you neglect what is important to you and that can have devastating effects on your overall wellbeing and motivation.
This why a crucial part of learning how to prioritise is to consistently do a weekly planning session at the end of the week.
Now a quick point on where and when to do your weekly planning session. Don’t do it at work and don’t do it on a Monday morning. The best place and time to do a weekly planning session is on a weekend away from your place of work. Why? Because removing yourself from the hustle and bustle of your workplace allows you to see the bigger picture of your life as a whole instead of just seeing your work life. Your life is not just made up of your work. There are your family and friends. Your goals, your hobbies and your health and wellbeing. If you are not taking care of these areas of your life you will feel out of control and have that sense you are making no progress on the important things in your life. In effect, you feel like you are always putting out fires not doing anything to build the life you desire. So, do your weekly planning session on a weekend wither at home or in a local cafe away from your usual working environment.
Okay, so once you have established what you high value, core tasks are, take a look at your calendar for next week. How many of those tasks have you allocated time for? I ask that because if these are genuinely your high-value core tasks you must make sure each week you have time carved out to make sure they happen.
You see, if you are not blocking time each day and each week to work on these high-value tasks, other, less important—but often louder—tasks will take over your day. Low-value tasks have a loud voice—they don’t want you to think about their low value so they often come bundled up in layers of urgency. You boss emails you and asks a question that if your boss spent five minutes in your company’s system could get the answer themselves, or a client calls you to say their shipment has not arrived—when the delivery company has already emailed them with the tracking number and given an estimated delivery day.
These tasks, when they pop up, appear urgent and cause us to think they are now a priority, yet, if you stop for thirty seconds you would realise they are not priorities and can be dealt with diplomatically and quickly—“sorry boss I’m in a meeting” or “have you received a confirmation email from the delivery company yet?”
These types of tasks do not need you to drop everything to rush around and spend an hour panicking. Stop, think, evaluate and make a decision. What’s more important? Only you can answer that.
The final part of this is to use the 2+8 Prioritisation method. This is where you take ten to fifteen minutes at the end of the day and process your to-do list’s inbox and look at what you have on your list of tasks for tomorrow. Pick two tasks and make these your objectives—The two tasks you must complete no matter what else happens. And select up to eight other tasks, that while you will do everything you can to complete them, it would not be the end of the world if you were unable to do so.
These are your priorities for tomorrow. It does not mean you ignore everything else you need to do, but these ten tasks are your priorities. Make sure these get done first. If, and only if, you have time at the end of the day will you begin work on the other low-value tasks.
When I began the day today, I had eight of these tasks on my priorities list. Two priorities—prepare this script and write my blog post. I have identified content creation as one of my core, high-value tasks so the content gets done first. When I look at the list now, of the six remaining tasks for today, four of them relate to content, one relates to my health and fitness—exercise and one relates to a client matter. As long as I complete these eight tasks today, I know I have moved the important things forward. I have taken care of all the high-value tasks I needed to take care of today and if I don’t do anything else today, I can be happy knowing the right things were done.
That is why the 2+8 Prioritisation Method works. It keeps you focused on the work you have identified as being important. If you are not completing these tasks on a daily basis, then you are allowing the less important, low value—but noisy—tasks take control of your day and you need to stop and evaluate why that is happening.
You could be saying “yes” too easily. If so learn how to say “no”. It’s a skill, but a skill worth learning nonetheless. It could be you have made the wrong decisions, look at your decision-making process and see how and where you can improve.
Adopt the CANI approach—the Constant And Never-ending Improvement approach. How can I improve my decision-making process? How can I make sure I stay focused on my priorities every day? All of these questions help you to stay focused on your core, high-value tasks.
I am not pretending this is easy. It is not. The truth is it is a constant battle because as humans we are programmed to take the easy path. But, when you make the decision to no longer accept the easy way and instead do it the right way, then you will start to see huge improvements in your productivity, your time management, your career and your overall sense of happiness and well-being.
Good luck, Tony and thank you try much for your question. Thank you also to all of you for listening.
Don’t forget to take the new Your Digital Life 3.0 course—if you are already signed up for the Your Digital Life programme. If not, you can still get yourself in and right now save yourself 20% with the early-bird discount.
It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.