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In the morning you need to write a list of tasks, prioritize … And that’s all, we are guaranteed a successful day? Unfortunately no. After all, we do not always understand how to distinguish the main from the secondary, the important from the urgent. We also have difficulty concentrating. A business coach tells how to fix it.
“Unfortunately, situations where I manage to put my priorities at the forefront are the norm rather than the exception. I try to plan my tasks for the day, highlighting the main thing, but at the end of the day I feel completely exhausted because I am distracted by calls, small turnover and meetings. The most important tasks continue to be postponed, and the grandiose plans for the year remain written on pieces of paper. What can you do to help yourself?» asks Olga, 27 years old.
I often come across a similar request in trainings on managerial effectiveness. Clients believe that the main reason for their problem is the lack of priorities. But in reality they are, just a person is not very concentrated on them.
And the first step in solving this issue is choosing the right tool to work on your concentration. It should fit exactly to your personal characteristics: you must take into account the conditions of your work and place of residence.
To get started, you can use several popular methods that have long been recognized as effective. I try to recommend them to clients with whom we are just starting to work.
First Approach: Understand the Evaluation Criteria
First, answer the question: What criteria do you use when you prioritize? The most common answer is the «urgency» criterion. With it, all cases line up in a row depending on the deadline. And only after that we build new tasks into the resulting «virtual constructor», shifting far back those that can be completed later.
What are the disadvantages of this approach? The list of today’s priorities should include not only what will lose relevance tomorrow, that is, urgent, but also what we abstractly call «important». This is what moves us towards the achievement of the goal, or what removes serious obstacles on the way to it.
And here many make the mistake of substituting the criteria. Laconically, this can be expressed as follows: “This is very urgent, because it is very important!” “This is very important because the deadline is tomorrow!” But if your list of priorities for the day does not contain tasks leading to the achievement of goals that are significant to you, you need to carefully analyze your to-do list.
You need to decide what criteria you use to determine the «urgency» and «importance» of tasks and whether you are mixing these two concepts.
Second Approach: Identify Three Categories of Priorities
As you know, planning horizons are different. If we are considering a planning horizon of one day, then it is better to proceed as follows:
- Set one top priority for the day. This is the task on which you will spend the maximum of your time and energy today;
- Identify three or four things that you will spend the least time and effort on today. It is better if you write down how much time (five minutes, ten minutes) you plan to spend on a particular case. This will become your “last priority” list.
- Into the third category will fall what may be called «cases of the residual principle.» They will be completed if there is free time left for them. But if they remain unrealized, it will not affect anything.
Here we are faced with the question: “How not to spend maximum energy on the “last priority”, unconsciously putting aside the “main” one? The third approach will help answer it.
Third Approach: Use Slow Time Mode
We spend most of our working time in «quick time» mode. We have to take part in routine processes and process a huge amount of information.
“Slow time” is the most effective way to stop the routine “running in the wheel”. This is a conscious look into yourself and the starting point for finding answers to the questions: “What am I doing? What for? What am I not doing and why?
For this method to work best, follow these three guidelines:
- Enter into your daily routine a certain ritual. This should be a recurring activity throughout the day that will put you in «slow time» mode. It can be a tea break, and regular squats. The ritual should take no more than 5 minutes and allow you to be alone. And, of course, bring you joy and pleasure — then you will not put it off until tomorrow.
- Keep in mind that «slow time» is not just time to enjoy, but also an opportunity to increase your satisfaction with the «fast time» mode. And ask yourself three questions: “What result should I achieve today?”, “What is the next small step towards this result that I need to take?”, “What distracts me from it and how not to get distracted?” These questions will help you keep your main goals in mind. And planning the next small steps will be an excellent prevention of procrastination.
- Use the slow time mode two to four times a day. The more often and stronger you are influenced by the factors of the outside world, the more often you should switch to this mode. Three questions and a couple of minutes per session will be enough. The main criterion is that it should give you pleasure. But remember: to use the technique less than once a day is not to practice it at all.