http://www.flickr.com/photos/daybeezho/
Over the past week I’ve been experimenting with my sweetheart in setting priorities. Each morning we discuss/email our top 3 essential priorities for the day so that we can be more focused on what matters and more accountable for achieving results.
Here’s what I’ve noticed so far:
- We both always have more than 3!
- If there is one ‘biggie’ on the list everything else falls out the window.
- Some things seem to spill over day after day.
- A lot of things get done which aren’t even on the list!!
- We are both still working crazy hours.
- Set timeframes for each item – once the allotted time is up, its time to move on – finished or not! (That’s sure to make me really think about how realistic I’m being in my expectations!)
- Delegate more. Between my PA/Marketing Assistant, the cleaner and the amazing Kay at HecticHelpers I’m sure I could be doing a lot less stuff that chews my time for little strategic result!
- Put aside one hour a day to do ’10 minute jobs’ so that I get a heap of the essential smaller things done each day.
- Strike a better balance between the strategic and the operational – both matter!
- Include more downtime – I’m not productive when I’m tired!
Comments
stress. And then we have distractions. You say, Lisa, that lots can be done when you do “10 minutes jobs”, and you are right, it adds up (I have finished many gorgeous knitting and embroidery projects that way). But interruptions add up, too, it is unbelievable
how much time you can waste responding to them. Another biggie is procrastination. I use pomodoro technique to help me when I get stuck. Check it here, it is a free resource, and I love it: http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/ I found as well that if you do not
get enough sleep, do not exercise, and eat wrong food or smoke, you simply will not have energy to carry you through the day. You have to look after body, mind and soul. Your first tip would not work for me – I cannot simply “move on” when I am, for example,
writing for a client. Setting time frames is not that easy; you can more or less predict how much time the article is going to take, but some part of it – like research or editing - is more difficult to plan. Naturally, you have to know at least more or less,
otherwise you would not know how much to charge for your services, but dropping a project while I am in the middle of it would not be a good idea. Just my experience.