Prioritize

Almost everyone finds themselves in a situation where too many tasks pile up, and there isn't enough time for anything. In such a situation, it often turns out that the tasks will be performed mediocre or not being performed at all. Usually we have accumulated cases from our personal life, health, work, financial problems and so on. And all of these things need to be dealt with.

What should you do to avoid leaving unfinished business? It is quite difficult to answer this seemingly simple question. In short, it's necessary to prioritize and plan. Let's first discuss the basic principles of time management, and then consider their practical application.

Basic principles

Since time is one of the most valuable human resources, identify the following principles for the effective use of this resource:

Setting specific goals. Identify the goals for which you live and do anything (although sometimes it is not easy to do).
Action planning. Based on your goals, make a plan to achieve them.
Prioritization. Prioritize things by importance and urgency.
Focus on what's important. Try not to be distracted by other things until you've your main things done.
Experience analysis. Analyze your mistakes and situations that negatively affect you, so that you don't make the same mistakes in the future.
Vacation planning. Do not forget about rest — proper rest gives energy for further work and helps not to burn out.

As with any theory, it isn't necessary to memorize all of these principles by heart. Rather, it is a basic part that must be understood when working with time.

This article will cover "Prioritizing" in more detail, since it's the one that has the most practical application.

Why it's worth prioritizing

To cope with a large load, it's worth prioritizing tasks. Yes, it's unlikely that you can do absolutely everything at once and at the same time, but that's okay. Of course, you have to adjust and change your priorities from time to time, because nothing in life goes 100% according to plan.

Prioritization helps to focus on the main goals, to do the most important and planned things first, and only then move on to the secondary ones.

For example, a person needs to prepare for a project presentation at work, go to the doctor for a checkup, finish reading a book on economics, and then friends call him to go to a bar. And that person has half a Friday afternoon to spare. It's worth noting that there are often situations where there is much more to do, but we will limit ourselves to the situation described above for simplicity. How to properly prioritize the person in the example will depend entirely on what the goals are:

Have a good rest — the bar will come first, the other things will be postponed, maybe even in favor of the other things (to leave work early in order to have time to go to the bar, for example).
Work first — in this case, most likely you will have to go to the bar next time, return to the book on the weekend.
Health and self-development — take time off from work early and visit a doctor, and in the evening there will also be some time to read a book.

There are several other examples of how to prioritize in a given situation. This example shows that you should have a goal in the first place, and prioritize according to it.

In any case, it is important to prioritize. Otherwise, the secondary, though necessary, will take away all the strength and prevent you from getting to the main thing. Igor Kurchatov, 1903–1960

Examples of techniques

You can start with the simplest thing: take a to-do list and prioritize it by numbers, starting with the most important. And then start working on the tasks according to the set priorities. This primitive method is suitable to develop the habit of prioritizing things. Over time, you can move on to one of the more comprehensive techniques.

People have already come up with many different techniques for setting and managing priorities. Each of them has its pros and cons. All this has already been explained in detail a thousand times in articles on the Internet and in books. I recommend the following:

Yes, I realize that all this sounds boring, abstruse, etc. But at least try these techniques once, and you can always abandon them. I myself settled on the Eisenhower matrix, slightly modifying it to suit me.

My Trello work board.

Prioritize tasks as you see fit. Do not be too pedantic: this isn't an exam and no one will check your grade, they will look at the final work (or lack thereof). Once priorities are set, it is equally important to focus on priority tasks. And for the most critical cases or events, you should add notifications to yourself.

Reminders

This is probably the most effective advice that you should listen to once you have set your priorities. It allows you to stick to and not forget the tasks. It often happens that we have a pile of things to do, and we lose sight of something, and then we get a reprimand that an important task has not yet been completed. Or in the routine flow of work, we may forget to congratulate loved ones on their birthdays/other important holidays, which can have a negative impact on future relationships.

Remind yourself every day of what your priorities are. Stick colorful stickers around your apartment, use reminders on your phone or laptop (Google Calendar or other similar applications), bombard your psyche with this information and don't let yourself forget about it.

Focusing

An equally necessary skill for effective time management is focus and concentration on the task at hand. Nowadays, almost everyone suffers from frequent distractions and procrastination because of the abundance of information noise around us. There are people with special diseases such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but most often poor concentration have people who can not focus on the important.

To work effectively without losing focus, don't let anything take you out of your flow state. I advise you to try the following approaches to minimize distractions in order to achieve higher productivity:

Enable silent mode in all chats in messengers, except for private messages.
Disable notifications everywhere except on emergency communication channels.
Deal with emails and private messages not when they come in, but between tasks, during breaks.
Allocate separate time for checking social networks. For example, when you're on public transport, waiting or taking a break. Also, it is worth introducing a time limit for each social network, so as not to accidentally spend there all the ~~working~~ free time.

Conclusions

Remember, the goal of time management is to ensure that all of your activities lead you in the most efficient way to achieve certain goals — short or long term. Even spending time with loved ones or watching a movie has a goal behind it — to make you happy and rested, so that during working hours you can productively fulfill other goals.

The phrase "I don't have time" is always slyness. We don't do some things not because we don't have time, but because we are not looking for an opportunity to do them. Accordingly, they are simply not a priority for us. Priorities are made up of desires and goals. If there is a desire, then with any workload there will be time for it, because this will become the most important thing.

In general, start with something simple: try to prioritize tasks, have reminders for the most important things, try not to be distracted by social networks during the working day, etc. Over time, you can switch to more complex time planning techniques or develop your own methodology for yourself. The main thing is to start planning and prioritizing.

A time resource is the most important resource for a person. With time management, achieving goals goes from magic to work according to a simple algorithm.

But you’ll never get anywhere if you don’t learn to keep first things first. Robert A. Heinlein, "Starship Troopers", 1959

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