Welcome back!
You’ve spent the first part of this course learning how to get motivated so that you can achieve your dreams. Now in this next part of the course you’re going to learn how to get more done in less time. That way you can not only achieve your goals more quickly, but you can also enjoy more free time! Read on…
Ranking Your Tasks
Have you ever started working on one task, but you could hardly concentrate because you were thinking about another? This is pretty common. As mentioned earlier in this course, one reason you might get easily distracted is because of fear. However, assuming that it’s not your fear talking, then you may want to start looking at how you prioritize your tasks.
You see, many people create to-do lists, but they don’t prioritize the tasks on the list. Or even if they prioritize the task list, there are other tasks in another area of their life that are actually more important. That’s why it’s so easy for you to start thinking about something else when you’re working on your task list.
So here’s what you need to do: Rank your tasks in order of importance.
Obviously, you need to start out by thinking about all the commitments you have in your life. If you’re like most people, you have several commitments, such as:
- Job or career commitments. This is a big one, and tends to eat up the most time and be the most demanding. Even if you work a typical 9:00 to 5:00 job, you’re still committed to being there during those hours. And if you’re in a salaried position and/or you hold an important job, your job probably requires a lot of your time and energy.
- Family commitments. This may be your spouse and children. But this could also include your parents and extended family, who may depend on you for everything ranging from monetary support to physical tasks like cooking.
- Personal commitments. These are the things you’re personally committed to. In many cases, your goal will likely fall into this category.
First, list out the commitments you have in the various categories above. Then rank these commitments in order of importance. For example, if your household depends on your income, then your job commitments may come first. That means you’ll fulfill your job commitments unless there’s an emergency.
Next, create to-do lists for each of your commitments. If you work an outside job, you can keep your work to-do list in your office. At home, your household to-do list will likely include things like grocery shopping, taking a child to the dentist, cleaning, etc. Finally, you should create daily and weekly goal-related to do lists.
Now rank all your tasks in order of importance. The items at the top of the list are your priority items, and very likely these are the items you should take care of yourself. However, see if you can delegate or outsource the items that are lower on your list.
Here’s the bottom line: You should focus on the most important tasks in your life and let someone else handle the low-priority tasks. Doing so frees up your time to give more care and attention to the tasks that matter.
That’s it for this time. Stay tuned for the next lesson, where you’ll learn more about the multi-tasking myth!