You can post reminders of your task list all around the office, and maybe even all around your home as well, but the key to accomplishing those tasks will be to prioritize them, so you know which ones provide the greatest value to your company. That’s one of the best-kept secrets to running your company well and achieving success, and it’s something that every accomplished entrepreneur is well aware of.
Why you should prioritize
If you’re like most business people, you are often a little bit overwhelmed by all the tasks on your to-do list, and there are usually so many of them that you literally don’t know where to start. This can in fact, be so demoralizing and frustrating that it can leave you unmotivated, with no idea about where to begin tackling the overall agenda. This is where prioritization comes in. It provides a certain clarity which is necessary before you can move forward, and by focusing in on what really matters, it provides you with a sense of direction and purpose.
When you invest your time and energy in the most important priorities, it’s much more likely that you will achieve your company’s goals and objectives. Separating the truly important actions from all the clutter will allow you to invest your time where it really is most important, and you’ll find that you’re wasting a lot less time on distractions and non-essential activities. Nothing is more valuable than your time, and by effectively prioritizing your task list, you’ll be taking control of your schedule, deferring tasks which are noncritical, reducing your stress level, and reclaiming at least some of that precious time.
How to go about prioritizing
One of the first principles to keep in mind when you’re trying to establish priorities is that you need to focus on just a few areas. With that in mind, you should choose up to about three goals and no more for each coming day, and these three goals should be drivers for what you do that day. When you try to pick which three goals to address, a good rule of thumb is to focus on activities which promote growth for your company. Of course there are hundreds of different ways of promoting company growth, but some are obviously more powerful and beneficial than others, and these are the ones you should prioritize.
Another thing to remember when you’re prioritizing is that there’s a difference between importance and urgency, and you should understand this difference. Sometimes urgent tasks pop up during the course of the day, simply because they grab your attention at the moment, for instance getting a phone call from a customer or a business partner. When things like this happen, you need to ask yourself whether handling this distraction is really contributing toward your goals for the day, or whether it’s just a distraction which seems urgent at the time.
Those people who are most successful in establishing and sticking to priorities are those who find a system that works for them, and which is a legitimate reflection of their values and personality. The best strategy for prioritizing is one which you will stick to, and which you will actually use on a regular basis, as opposed to something which you might use once or twice and then discard.
In establishing a system of prioritization that works for you, be sure to build in some flexibility into the process, because your priorities may be different in the short-term versus the long-term. If a given activity does nothing to contribute toward accomplishment of either short-term or long-term goals, it’s probably not worth doing, or at least it should not be prioritized above other more important tasks.
If you’d help creating a priority system to help you run your business, Business Partner Alliance is here for you. We provide targeted coaching, consulting and business advisory services to help small and medium sized business owners achieve new heights. We put our passion and experience to work to help business people achieve their goals. Let’s meet for coffee to see how we can work together.
Emory Ware