Techniques to Prioritizing Everything

Everyone many times has gone through a situation where everything seems important and needs to be completed. Lots of tasks in hand, overflowing emails, and higher expectations can frustrate anyone resulting in an overwhelming situation of confusion in prioritizing the tasks. Prioritizing the tasks when everything is important is a challenging task but one who masters this technique can change their life. As we know “Good things happen when you set your priorities straight.”

The secret of prioritizing the task firstly lies in the discipline of the person. Many people at the start of my day go through the things they need to do for the complete day and start working on it. But many times situation comes where we feel that everything needed to be completed and this confused us about where to start. Making our brain pause. So in today’s article, we will learn the special technique of the Eisenhower Decision Matrix and a few other techniques to prioritize everything even if we missed adding them as a reminder in our calendar.

Firstly we will move toward our main technique which is the most effective one.

Eisenhower Decision Matrix

This tool is named after one of the presidents of the United States Mr. Dwight D. Eisenhower. They have performed in various higher positions in their lifetime along with being a president. He was a military head and also the president of Columbia University. He was able to accomplish all such big achievements because he knows how to prioritize his tasks.

The important step in prioritizing knows the difference between important and urgent. The one who knows it will know how to prioritize the urgent from the important. The urgent tasks are the ones that need to be completed by giving immediate attention. This task comes with the forthcoming consequences attached to them when not dealt with on time. Whereas, important tasks are the ones that when completed will help us to reach closer to our goals. In the Eisenhower matrix, we will create a square and divide it into four equal parts as shown below:

Urgent and Important- These are the most crucial tasks so should be done as a priority.

Not Urgent and Important-This task should be at the second number of the to-do list.

Urgent and Not Important- This will come at the third priority of the list as they are urgent.

Not Urgent and Not Important- These tasks are at least of priority even if some people delete such tasks.

While defining the priority we must also observe if some tasks can be assigned to others for completion if so it is better to get them completed with others' help in time instead of wasting our time over it. The most urgent and not important task falls in this category of taking help from others where they are not much important so we can rest assured once they are completed.

Breaking Down the List

In this David Allen’s ‘Get Things Don' technique we will note down the tasks in a list and then break them down into monthly, weekly, and daily tasks. Once the master list is prepared we will observe that the task can be easily highlighted based on their required attention. This will help you to organize and shorten your monthly goals in the daily list so that further Eisenhower division matrix can be applied for better organization and prioritization of tasks.

Separate Tasks with Similar Priorities It is easy to differentiate between urgent and important and prioritize the tasks. But what if, both tasks are similar priorities? We can’t complete both single hands at the same time. In such a situation Brain Tracy’s ABCDE methodology can come handy for us. In this, we must provide alphabets A-B-C-D-E and so on to the tasks starting a as higher priority. Once this is done repeat the process where you feel they have almost similar priority providing the order number you will complete it in. In such a way you can differentiate the priority from the layers available of the alphabet and their order. This will much clear your view further on their importance. For example task A3 will be done before task B1 which may look similar at first look to you hence, proving its importance more than the previous methods. By prioritizing the tasks we will be more clear and move on to our goals further. Prioritizing our tasks will help us complete them and also dissolve the illusion of productivity. Because “Productivity is never an accident, it is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused efforts.” About Advance Agility We, at Advance Agility, are the new-age Agile Coaching, Consulting, and IT services company. We enable end-to-end Digital Transformation. Agile execution is integral to our being. We are doing SAFe implementation with small, medium, and large organizations across the globe. Our vision is to be the leading Agile execution player globally. To keep adding value at every process stage. We are on a mission to empower our clients and move from concept to cash in the shortest sustainable lead time by adopting a human-centric approach to business agility. Embracing change is in our DNA. Things that keep us apart are Quicker and Seamless execution with an End-to-end gamut of services. Our Global presence and Stellar Track Record give us an edge over our competitors. Connect with us at advanceagility.com to learn about SAFe and SAFe Implementation. Please write to us at contact@advanceagilty.com for any agile training or consulting needs. We are always looking for competent agile trainers as well. So if you are a good trainer or want to become one, do get in touch with us to that we can learn, grow and achieve together.