Setting priorities Right!!

Ever discovered your car insurance expired a week ago, just immediately after you had an accident? Ever happened that you wanted to follow some recreational vocation but never found time? Ever wished for 26 hours in a day than 24 as you always have so much to do?  Ever happened to you that you were not hold on to your ‘new year resolutions’ for more than a week?

How many times have we pushed back a lot of important things because at that time we did not feel it was urgent? We are so busy in our lives that it is very difficult to decide between what was only urgent & not important and what was important but not urgent. Most likely, we are so engaged in our lives that we are left with no choice but to choose to do the urgent work first.

Dr Steven Covey’s “Seven habits of highly effective people” states “first thing first” as the third habit for being effective. “To live a more balanced existence, you have to recognize that not doing everything that comes along is okay. There's no need to overextend yourself. All it takes is realizing that it's all right to say no when necessary and then focus on your highest priorities. It is about life management as well as your purpose, values, roles, and priorities. What are "first things?" First things are those things you, personally, find of most worth. If you put first things first, you are organizing and managing time and events according to the personal priorities.” Pareto’s principle states that 20% of your activities will account for 80 percent of your success. When you have to choose among several tasks, there are several prioritization tools that we can use. The very basic of such a tool is dividing our activity into the four quadrants of important & urgent. However, to begin to do, that let’s quickly define ‘Important’ & ‘Urgent’.

Urgent – something that has to be attended “NOW” else we might have to face some consequences. Eg. Fire Alarm / medical emergency/ answering a ringing phone

Important – Having great value, influence or effect.

Now, we need to run our work on these filters and ensure that we focus majority of the time only on the important things. However, we can’t imagine ourselves in a situation where everything is going as per plan and we don’t need any fire-fighting!! Hence, we would definitely find fire-items taking away majority of our time.

Sometimes priorities will keep shifting with passing time. We would need to juggle between tasks. On balance, though, we need to ensure our priorities are consistent with our personal goals and the goals of our organizations. Doing this requires a periodic review, and a weekly planning session is ideal for this.

I am sure that most of the people reading this would already know whatever I am sharing with you today. But when it comes to application, it is very important to be able to determine what is important to us before we can use this tool.

To sum it up, a battle well planned is a battle half-won !!