Want to be more productive with your day?
One of the biggest challenges, especially as an entrepreneur, is time management. It is very easy to get pulled by so many tasks that the entire day can go by without you accomplishing what is most important. To help with this, it is beneficial to have a structured way to prioritize your day to make sure you get what's most important done. Taking a few minutes every morning to prioritize your day can also help you be more productive with your time because you will not have to worry about what to do next, you can simply just follow your plan.
Here are 6 steps to prioritizing your day:
1. Number One Goal For The Day
The first thing you have to decide for each day is, what is your number one goal? When deciding this, this task should be something that will move you into the direction of the larger goals you are working towards. What will make the biggest impact if you accomplish it today? Ideally, this would be something that is important, and not something that is just urgent.
- do this task first!
One of the common traits noticed when talking with successful individuals is that they tend to do the most important task first. Doing this will guarantee you keep working towards your goals and do not get caught up in the whirlwind of business all day. Often times we like to get our small, quick, easy tasks done first. However, this can start to move you away from your goals because you may get so caught up in these small, urgent, tasks that you never accomplish what is most important to your goals.
2. Important vs. Nice To Get Done
Sort your tasks into two categories: Important and Nice To Get Done.
Important tasks
As the name suggests, these should be tasks that are important. They should be moving you into the direction of your goals and/or taking care of something that is urgent.
Limit Yourself to Five
Limiting yourself to 5 tasks will help to keep you focused. Many times we are unproductive not because we do not have enough to do, but because we have TOO much we are trying to do. When interviewing successful individuals many of them recommended having 6 important tasks to do every day. So, since we already have our Number One Goal for the day, that leaves us with 5 more tasks to focus on.
Nice To Get Done
Your tasks that are nice to get done typically will be those quick, nonurgent, not extremely important tasks. These, if needed, could wait till tomorrow, but would be great to get done today!
Do What is Important BEFORE What is Nice To Get Done
It is very easy to let these small tasks occupy our time because it gives us a quick sense of accomplishment when we complete these. However, dealing with your important tasks first will guarantee you get it done. These smaller tasks should only be done after all the important tasks are done.
3. Not To-Do list
The last type of list you should make that can help you to prioritize your day is making a NOT to-do list. What are those bad habits, or unnecessary behaviors you find yourself doing that often times get in the way of you accomplishing what needs to be done? Maybe this is checking your social media, watching TV, or getting unhealthy food from the vending machine. Whatever they are, classify them now as not a priority, and commit to NOT doing them.
4. Tip 1: Plan Your Day The Night Before
Even though the benefits of planning and prioritizing your day can be obvious, in the moment, it is often difficult to actually pull ourselves away from work to take a couple of minutes to do it. To prevent this from happening, try planning your day the night before. This can accomplish several things. First, it will guarantee you actually plan your day. Second, it will make you more productive right off the bat because you will not need to get up thinking about what to do, you can just dive right into it.
5. Tip 2: Make a bullet plan for your day
After you prioritize your day, make a bullet plan of the order you will accomplish each task. By making this bullet plan and rehearsing your coming day in your head in advance can help you to keep yourself productive and efficient. You will not need to stop to look at your list as often because you will know what to accomplish next. When you are making your bullet plan you may start to see ways to perform your tasks more efficiently. For example, you may notice you can make one of your phone calls while driving.
Now start writing!
Take out a piece of paper, notecard, post-it, or whatever you have available to you and start prioritizing your day (or tomorrow's day). I know that many times it seems like just keeping a plan in your head works well enough, but I truly believe if you start writing your day in advance on paper you will immediately start to see the benefits!
If you need help prioritizing your days, weeks, months and year, check out the GoalCrazy 90 day planner. It will help you break those big goals of yours down into monthly, weekly, and daily steps to get there. You can check it out below!
Join the Crazy Community
If you have any questions or any other strategies that work well for you, please connect with us in the Crazy Community Facebook Group. We would love to hear from you and share ideas on how to improve!