I do everything in importance of order!

Well don’t you?

After all its just common sense isn’t it?

Well not always!

I have lost track of the number of times I have found myself doing things out of priority or sequence because I didn’t:

• realise I was doing so
• want to do it at that moment in time
• know how to, etc

Well I learned a long time ago that there are never enough hours in a day. I can never do or achieve every thing I want to do in my day, but I know that I definitely need to attempt to do the most important things first.

But what is important?

Obviously something is either important or not important.

But is it also urgent or not?

Well thanks to Stephen Covey of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People fame, we can simply determine an items priority:

	URGENT	NOT URGENT
IMPORTANT	Return a call from an important client	Finish reading my latest business book, magazine or article
NOT IMPORTANT	Catch the last post so a document gets to its destination in time but its content is of little value or significance	Get my car cleaned so I feel better

As a rule I start every day by compiling my ‘to do’ list.

I put each item in the most appropriate box. I am then in a position to more easily assign a priority to every item. The sequence I follow is to visit each box in the following sequence:

• Important/Urgent
• Important/Not Urgent
• Urgent/Not Important
• Not Important/Not Urgent ones.

By so doing every item is given a priority.

All that’s now required is to follow it faithfully and complete every item or task!

But come on we live in the real world I hear you say. Every item is never done.

That’s right; circumstances will change throughout the day. But you start off knowing your priorities, you amend them as necessary and reprioritise.

  

I have done this for years and it works for me.

Do you think it would help you?

 If you need help let me know.