More Time for More Living - How To Prioritise

We could all do with some more time. After all more time is more living. Here's how to prioritise. We’ve heard it before, “we all have the same 24 hours in a day”. True as it is, time can be a difficult thing to find enough of in the modern technological age now live in. Overwhelm is very real and we must do what we can to manage this.

Remember, it’s not about doing more things, it’s about doing the right things.

Once you cut the wrong things out, you suddenly have more time than you know what to do with. Perhaps now you can pick up the guitar or play with your dog instead of scrolling emails all day!

Here’s my 3-step attack at prioritisation.

Step 1: Eliminate where possible.

Take your time here. Seriously consider what’s on your list that is either a waste of time or would be better done by someone else. Outsourcing tasks which are not suited to you is a great idea. There are many options for outsourcing online such as Fiverr or you can simply ask your kids to help out if it’s an option.

Remember, it’s not about doing more things, it’s about doing the right things.

Step 2: Arrange the priorities.

This can serve as a secondary elimination exercise. Once you differentiate the most important tasks, the ones at the bottom of the list may not seem so important. Use caution here, our minds can often trick us into putting off more difficult tasks until a later date. As Brian Tracy says, “Eat that frog!”. This means you should aim to do the most difficult task first thing in the day. A caveat to this; it should also be the most important task!

There are many ways to prioritise tasks. Here is a method I find both simple and effective:

Write down the list. Assign them an A, B or C.

A – must be done today in order for progress, success, etc.

B – could be postponed until tomorrow

C – not really that important (consider elimination)

Now, you may have a long list of A’s. Assign each task numbers in order of the highest priority task. Ask yourself:

Q1. If I could only do one task, which one would be most beneficial for long-term results?

Q2. Which task would make the rest of the tasks easier or irrelevant?

Q3. Which task will give me more time?

You get the idea. You should now have a list of orderly priorities.

Remember, it’s not about doing more things, it’s about doing the right things.

Step 3: Distribute the list.

Split tasks into a weekly planner (there are numerous apps you can use for this such as Microsoft To-Do). It’s best to batch tasks if possible. Here is an example;

Mon – Planning – plan week, review goals, prep meals.

Tues – Content creation – shoot videos, create social media posts.

Wed – Networking – reach out, chase emails, opportunities and ideas.

And so on.

Of course, not every day will run perfectly to plan but by batching types of high-priority tasks into separate days, you can channel energy and create multiple lists instead of long never-ending list of to-dos.

Remember, it’s not about doing more things, it’s about doing the right things.

I hope you enjoyed this short article. This is taken from a new book I’m working on, with a hope to save everyone time, in order to live more. Please let me know your honest thoughts and opinions by sending me a message either by email or on social media. Remember to subscribe to my weekly newsletter, check your junk mail and add me to your favourites in order to keep receiving articles life this one. Thanks for reading, Chris Mac.