Everything Is Not #1: Time Perception Tip #3
August 28, 2008 by Elizabeth Potts Weinstein
Do you have a master list of all the projects and tasks for your business? My journal contains page after page of lists, mind maps, strategies, and bullet points of the projects that I’m juggling for The Wealth Spa and my various business ideas. And while it’s powerful to write down projects and make lists of to-do’s, I was missing the critical piece … prioritization.
Yes, I’ve known for years that I needed to prioritize tasks. I’ve put them in order, given them A,B,C’s and noted the next action step for each project. I made charts and grouped them into “departments” and types of task. But in complete rebellion to every life coach I’ve hired and time management guru I’ve studied, I completely refused to prioritize.
I refused to decide which project was #1. I triaged them, yes, grouped them, yes, but completely refused to decide which was first.
Perhaps it was a lack of understanding of a fundamental principle–prioritization does not mean order of importance. Choosing which project was #1 did not mean that the other projects were not as important, but that the #1 project simply needed to be done first, for whatever reason.
Sometimes there’s a logical order to projects. Yes, I do want to sell ad packages on my new website … but first the new website needs to be completely finished. Yes, I want to launch my new Grow Up! Video-Cast Seminar … but first the book needs to be shipped. Yes, I’m going to develop The Wealth Spa Retreat … but first I need to build my traffic & my list.
And sometimes it’s not just about logical order; it’s about who is “pinging” you, whether mentally or in reality. Back in June I had 3 outstanding client projects sitting on my to-do list. Tons of other projects were more important to my bottom line, but those little projects were annoying me. Every so often I’d get an email from one of the clients, and I could just feel them energetically “pinging” me from across the city.
So those 3 projects became my #1. And I got them done in less than a day.
Now I have a project list in my organizer/calendar that is in numbered order. Right now I’m in the middle of #4 (finish redirection and setup of new website). And I’m not moving to #5 (moving over all domains to new server) until #4 is finished. (btw, this is how I was able to go from conception of a new website to re-design/re-organization in just a few weeks, with a bunch of travel and some personal issues at the same time)
I only have 5 projects listed in priority order, because those all must be done before any other projects on my “maybe” list. As soon as I finish #5, I will evaluate my “maybe” list and set priorities for my next few projects (or choose to let some go, or choose to keep them as “maybe’s”).
Are you working on everything at once? Check over your big list of projects and to-do’s and pick the most important one. Make it #1, and do it first. You’ll be amazed at your progress!
Tags: life hack, productivity, project management, projects, Time Management
I really enjoyed the idea that the priority doesn’t have to the be the most vital; it can be the one that’s taking up the most brainshare and getting it out of the way.
I’m certainly guilty of not prioritizing writing projects to my advantage, so I’ll be reorganizing the list to try this out!
Sara at On Simplicitys last blog post..The Reality Behind the Wedding of Your Dreams
Sara - this was huge for me. Now that I got over the fact that prioritization does not mean most important, I’ve been able to make so much more progress!
~ Elizabeth
Good post, Elizabeth. Sometimes you just gotta bump things up in priority and get them out of the way … so you can focus on what’s really important.