A few tips on how to shrink and prioritze your to-do-list

Aug 14th, 2007 by David Murphy-Colonna | Scroll down for comments

Whether you run a business, work for a corporation, write a blog, or have a family, time is precious. You try to be everywhere at once and do everything at once, but it just can’t happen at times.

Recently, I picked up an old issue of “Best Life Magazine: What Matters to Men,” and they had a great side article entitled “Time Crunch,” that gave 5 questions to ask your self to help you whittle down tour too much to do list. These 5 questions, are great and I just want to share them with you and provide my own little summary of each and how they can relate to your life, whether it be financially, at work, or on the home front.

Does it fit into the big picture?

First, you have to define what your big picture is. Is it your family, your career, the completion of a big project at work, retiring early? Whatever it is, you need to always keep that goal in mind when prioritizing.

If your family is the big picture and the focus of your life, make sure that the things you do during your hectic schedule will benefit them in the long run. I am not saying to working 60 hours a week to save up for your child to go to college in 18 years fits in the big picture. But perhaps you should try to get into work a little earlier so you can leave earlier to be with your family more often.

Is it important or just urgent?

This question is a confusing one and may be even hard to judge sometimes. The lines are often blurred between urgent and important. Of course we want to accomplish what is important to us, but we do have to realize that what is urgent does need to be done first. I

f the roof has a leak and you know a storm is coming, you would want to fix it right away even though it may not be important to you and your big picture. If your boss wants you to get a project done immediately that interferes with your other projects, you will have to settle for the urgent not for what’s important to you.

I think the important lesson to learn from distinguishing if something is important or urgent is to develop a system that will enable you to accomplish urgent tasks quickly and efficiently, allowing you to spend more time on your own important and personal goals, instead of running around like a mad man/woman.

Am I the only person who can do this?

In regards to your family, yes you are the only person who can make your son/daughter feel special by going to his/her soccer games. Bottom line.

But in areas of work, we sometimes have to realize that we are not super men or women, and that we do have co-workers to help us out with certain projects. Sure we want it done our way and think we can do the best job. But, sometimes it is necessary to ask for help or a favor in order to accomplish things in a quicker, or in a more efficient manner.

We also need to realize that our presence is not always needed everywhere. If you are able to have someone attend a meeting for you or take notes, this would definitely save you time and boredom , since your skills and actual person has no bearing on what others may happen in a status meeting.

This also ties into the next question.

Do I have to be there in person?

It is not always important to meet face to face when running a business. Sure, in the beginning it is good to form a relationship with your co-workers and business partners face-to-face, but once that relationship is formed emails and phone calls are the way to go, try not to waste hours trying to meet up with people when it is unnecessary.

In regards to family, once again yes you have to be there when its your wife’s birthday, or your anniversary, bearing any huge business trips(even then you should try to plan ahead.) An email or a call usually will not suffice in instances like these, so plan ahead, and determine when your presence is needed.

Will it cost me if I don’t go?

“Best Life Magazine” calls this the “Who will I piss off?”

This is very important at work and the home-front.

With work, you don’t want to miss or be late for an important lunch with your boss because you have a dentist appointment. Your dentist doesn’t care whether you show up or not, (he gets paid either way,) but your boss will. So know who your time matters too.

As far as the homefront goes, maybe you don’t have to attend every family event but as I said before a child’s birthday or an anniversary for your and your wife are definitely high priority items. If you don’t follow through with being places where it counts the most, you may be sacrificing you job in the work place, or getting a lot of unnecessary grief on the home-front.

So think about these questions next time you are trying to break down your too much to do list. They will help you to prioritize, see the big picture, and help you figure out what is important, and what is not so important.

David Murphy-Colonna posted this article under Personal Development on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 11:52 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment or trackback from your own site. View Technorati Linkbacks.