How to Prioritize Your Daily Tasks | SOBY 048

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Today, we’re jumping back into our series on productivity with an episode about something many of us need: clearly defined priorities. This podcast is the third in our mini-series, so if you haven’t already listened to the previous episodes, make sure to start there first!

Now that you’ve got a solid foundation on breaking goals into categories and subcategories, Tequila is here to teach you how to prioritize your daily tasks using a productivity strategy that works: the Time Management Matrix. Grab the categorization list you made in the last episode, and let’s get started!

How to Prioritize Your Daily Tasks

What you should always ask yourself is: “Are the tasks I am doing right now impacting other areas of my productivity in a negative way?” Because if they are, you’ll need to make changes…but you’re not going to really know this until you prioritize!

At some point in your life, you’ve probably taken a step back from a cluttered desk (and a cluttered inbox!) and realized that you’re drowning in work.

That’s because as humans, we sometimes feel like we have to solve every problem we come across right away, regardless of how important it is. Every phone call and email and unexpected meeting seems urgent, and we feel compelled to take care of it all immediately.

But this isn’t a healthy way of approaching our work, and it can make us stressed and overwhelmed in our day-to-day life.

Instead, Tequila walks us through a simple but elegant solution: the Time Management Matrix. This easy activity is designed to help us be more productive in life by defining our daily tasks in order of urgency and importance. You’ll categorize these projects and to-dos in a way that fits your lifestyle and your personal goals.

Best of all, once you’ve prioritized your daily tasks, you’ll be able to immediately know whose calls to take now and whose to take later, which meetings and “time waster” tasks to skip, and which items on your list must be completed at all costs!

Listen On to Find Out:

• How to prioritize your daily tasks with the Time Management Matrix
• Why time management can actually teach you how to get more done in life
• How to decide what items are “urgent” or “important”
• What “quick wins” are, and why they’re great to have on your to-do list
• Why we should focus on areas we often let slide, like health and family
• What to do with all of your sudden interruptions and distractions each day
• Strategies to teach you how to be more productive working from home

Manage Your Time, and Manage Your Life

Have you been following along with the steps of this mini-series, trying to learn how to improve your time management, productivity, and more? Join the rest of us in the Stand Out Be You community on Facebook for insights from people on the same journey! We’ve got lots of mini-trainings happening, plus you’ll find support from Tequila and past podcast guests to help you boost your productivity even further.

And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast! This way, you’ll hear the next episodes in our productivity mini-series as soon as they’re released.

Resources

Now that you’ve learned how to prioritize your daily tasks in life and business, it’s time to put the lesson into practice! Check out our workbook, which comes complete with a checklist to help you create a draft of your new plan. Visit tequiladodard.com/productivity to get yours.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to the Stand Out Be You Podcast. I'm Tequila Dodard your host and I am glad you are here! We've been speaking about producitity and freeing up more time. If you here to day know you are listening to a series so be sure to subscribe and go back and listen to the previous episodes. Today is part 3 of the Productivity Series.
As you know in the previous episode, I discussed how to break things down your goals into categories and sub-categories. There is also an earlier episode where you can listen to a mini-training I did for members inside the Stand Out Be You Community Facebook group. If you haven't joined us yet then know we are waiting for you. You can go to tequiladodard.com/community to join us.

What I recommend that you do before you move on in this episode is try to accomplish writing down those tasks and categorizing them if you have not done so already. Go back and listen to previous episodes and also download the productivity workbook that goes along with this series at tequiladodard.com/productivity. Doing this is just going to make life a lot easier, and you will be able to implement what you are learning here with me today.

So, let's get on with it. Today, we are going to talk about defining your priorities, and I'm going to help you do that by introducing you to time management matrix. Time management, obviously, is not the same thing as productivity however they do go hand in hand. And by applying and combining the two, they can actually help you out in getting more done in your business and life.

So, what I really want you to do is take a look at what we discussed in the previous episode hopefully you have it all journaled out. And as you can see, we all have different priorities, right? Well for the purpose of this show we are going to place a level of importance on each of these priorities.

Here are the level of importance choices. #1: Urgent and Important, #2: Not Urgent but Important, #3 Urgent but Not Important, and #4 Not Urgent and Not Important.

While that may seem a little bit confusing right now, that will make a lot more sense in just a minute.

So I want you to get out a piece of paper: Draw a cross, make it huge to give you four quadrants. In each quadrant I want you to place one level of importance choice in each section now. Starting with Urgent and Important in the first quadrant top left. Go ahead and place the remainders ending with the Not Urgent and Not Important bottom right quadrant.

So, let's think about the #1 Urgent and Important because that’s probably the most important section out of all the lists in the To-Do list, tasks and projects and more than likely we need to it get done like yesterday.

So, with that being said items that fall within this area most times have deadlines. These are categorized as deadline items – basically things that have a certain time that you have to get things done; emergencies, client projects– and these tasks/ emergencies might come up unexpectedly so we have to be ready for them.

Next, we have quadrant #2 the Urgent but Not Important. These things can be items such as interruptions, distractions –that feel so urgent yet they are not that important. For example, you might get a phone call for example, but you realize the phone call might be from somebody who is not necessarily important. I know that may sound bad, but you'll understand what I mean in just a second.

So, these phone calls are interruptions from not so important individuals, but you do need to categorize them and say, okay, I'm not going to take any phone calls from anybody unless it’s from my child or from my spouse or whoever that I might deem as important. Makes sense? Ok, great so for now you file that call away and come back it.

I bet up to this point, you might be taking every single phone call that you get. So, assuming that it is Urgent but Not Important and not in the Urgent and Important category, that’s going to help us better categorize and prioritize in that sense.

Ok, let's talk emails and where they fall. Emails, in fact, are one of the most distracting things that a lot of us encounter. Believe me, I know, I am in constant battle with my inbox.

They did a study, and they found that a lot of people tend to spend most of their time on emails, on Helpdesk tickets, on support, on the phone – any types of communication. And because of that, and we deem it as Urgent and Important, we are not able to get things done as quick as possible.

But when we are able to prioritize and when we can establish the emails as Urgent but Not Important, then most emails will fall into the not important.

You're able to control your box more and say: I'm not going to take any of my emails until I get this task done that is Urgent and Important, then guess what – you're going to get things done quicker.

And then, of course, unscheduled meetings so for example, people showing up at your house or people, solicitors or anyone showing up unscheduled this includes random calls. If it is unplanned and you're just trying to be nice, then you need to take a look at why you're taking these meetings and why in your mind right now you feel like they are Urgent and Important, and how you can probably categorize them as Urgent but Not Important.

So, for example, if you have open office hours, that’s totally fine. But if you realize that most of your time is being spent towards that, then you need to realize that you need to make adjustments for the sake of your productivity in other areas. So, what you should always ask yourself is – are the task I'm doing right now impacting other areas of your productivity negatively. Because if they are, you will need to make changes but you're not going to really know that unless you begin to prioritize.

So, that brings us to Quadrant #3 the Not Urgent but Important. So, a lot of times, things that are important tend to not really show themselves upfront. They might not seem urgent, but they do have a level of importance, but most times they are pushed to the side, or pushed away because over time. We've tried to accomplish tasks that might seem a lot more urgent pushing these to the side.

These can consist of major projects, success plans, and relationship building, and get this health. We don’t really think about our health. I've talked to many doctors before and they’ve said that a lot of people have increase stress due to not prioritizing. A lot of these stressors can come from work and maybe building a business, working on your career and so forth. It interesting at the end of the day, when we are retired, we end up spending all of that money towards health.

So, we don’t really think about that but health can actually impact a lot of these other areas. If you're not healthy, you're not getting enough sleep or exercise, then you're not going to be able to perform as efficiently on getting major projects done.

So, for example, if you are getting three hours of sleep – sometimes, work that might take you 10 hours will actually take you 20 hours or 30 hours. But if you're getting the proper amount of sleep and exercise, then that 30-hour project would actually turn into five hours or less. So, that’s why health is so important.

Now let's talk relationships. Relationship building is important because we are social beings as well. So, they might not seem urgent because of major projects and all these other phone calls and everything like that are in your face, but relationships are definitely important.

So, you really need to categorize – okay, figure out what kind of major projects; maybe not be urgent and in your face but definitely are important and are preventing you from actually reaching the end goal. Maybe that major project may not seem that urgent but it’s preventing you from going from Point A to Point C. It could even be with a friend of family member. So, see what I mean here? So, that’s why we need to be really careful when we prioritize and categorize things in this quadrant.

And that brings us to the 4th quadrant, which is Not Urgent and Not Important. While these can be considered time wasters, things that are trivial they still need to get done. I like to call these quick ‘wins’. Quick wins may not be expected but they might be something that will help us push through the day. They are unexpected and not as important but we still need to be aware of them. They are items you can quickly cross of as a win on your list.

You know as human beings, we feel like because something needs to get done is in our face that we must solve it right away; or if somebody is screaming to get our attention, and it seems urgent and really important but it really isn’t.

So, that’s why you really need to sit down and write down your priorities – put it on paper, create a cross, and then think about what we discussed today, determining what is not important and urgent, and so forth and so on.

So, if you need to go back to the beginning of the episode and write down that matrix and that cross with the four different quadrants in it, feel free to go and do that. If it makes it easier I have linked a workbook with a checklist to help you draft it all out as well. You can go to tequiladodard.com/productivity to grab it. The best part is you can access it from anywhere. Go to tequiladodard.com/productivity to grab it.

So, once you've gotten to this point, you will have realized, aha, so now, I know that even if I have a Sue or Tom screaming at my face and or calling me constantly, I realize that they are not really that important compared to my other To-Do list items.

But honestly, you're not really going to know that unless you begin to prioritize and write it down. So, in the beginning, writing it down on a piece of paper will actually help you better than typing it into your iPhone or computer. Afterward, categorize them inside the board I put together for you at tequiladodard.com/productivity.

So, in the next episode, we are going to move onto Episode 4, and I'm going to talk about how to schedule and create your To-Do list. Until next time Stand Out be You!