How do I prioritise when everything is important?

If you’ve read my previous content you’ll know I harp on about unitasking a lot.  And maybe you’re convinced that multitasking is indeed terrible for productivity and stress levels.  Maybe you’re convinced enough to try doing ONE thing at a time. 

But, you might ask….how on earth do I choose that one thing?

I’ve got 7 things on my to-do list. Which one do I do first? Which one can wait? Ooh it’s so tricky.  They ALL seem so important. It’s almost like we feel bad if we pick one in case the others get FOMO. And what if I pick the wrong one to focus on and I accidentally ignore the most important task in the world ever. What if that one could have had a life-changing impact on our business? No that feels a bit too risky. Perhaps it’s better just to nibble away at few simultaneously.

And then bham, we’re multitasking (which decreases our productivity and increases our stress).

THIS, in my opinion is the BIGGEST barrier that gets in the way of us multitasking. What follows in this article is a way to answer the above challenge.  Because it IS hard to prioritise.

So here is a system that I’ve come up with that will you can use to help you prioritise your to-do list.

First things first.

WHAT’S REALLY ACTUALLY GENUINELY IMPORTANT (HIGH VALUE)

Ok so I love a matrix.  If you like lists and you may want to stick with a list. You may feel some apprehension about switching to a matrix.  But think about this.  A matrix is really a way of making list WITHIN lists.  I can prove it to you.

Here is the first matrix.

Now write out all your tasks for the week that would normally appear on your to-do list. If you have post-its notes and they will fit into quadrants of the matrix you can write your tasks on the post-it notes - this will make it easier later.  Write one task per post-it note.

Now decide which quadrant you are going to put each task into.

Urgent Important, Non urgent Important

Urgent non-Important, Non urgent non-Important.

Now look at all the tasks that are ABOVE the line - these are your IMPORTANT tasks.  And put these in priority order of IMPORTANCE.  You don’t need to overthink this.  You’re brilliant and smart and capable or else you wouldn’t be reading this article.  So whatever feels right is probably just that.  Right. Or it’s certainly more right than wrong.  So go with you gut and assign your IMPORTANT tasks in terms of priority.  (1 being the highest priority) The purpose of doing this is two-fold.

1. It makes it easier to do ONE thing at a time if you organise your tasks in priority order
2. The act of prioritising gets easier and less scary the more you do it.  So the process is just as important as the scores on the doors.

You’ll see from the matrix above that the tasks above the line are the ones that YOU actually do.  The ones below the line are NON-IMPORTANT so they are either not the most effective use of YOUR time (delegate) or they’re not the most effective use of anyone’s time (discard).

Now truth time…..

Have you put any tasks in the discard box (if you find it more palatable you could call this the “back burner” box - it’s up to you what you call them)

If you haven’t that’s ok but I encourage you to keep an open mind about this.  And when you’re feeling really calm and confident, have another look and just see if there’s anything that could go in the discard box.  Remember the more meticulously you prioritise the more time and energy you can give to your high value tasks so discarding a task isn’t an act of negligence, it’s an act of diligence and courage.

If this still doesn’t convince you let me share a piece of wisdom I heard from friend Jo Ritchie , Senior Business Manager at Vodafone Business UK.  She said, “everything is important until you get a last minute offer to see Harry Styles, then suddenly you realise which tasks you can drop to make space in your day.”

The point is this.  We don’t LIKE dropping things, but it doesn’t mean we CAN’T drop things.

So see if you can choose just one task that goes in the discard box. It’ll pay off when you’re backstage at a harry styles concert* (feel free insert your favourite artist here.  Mine is Tom Cruise, naturally)

Ok, I think you get the point. Lets move on.

WHAT TASK DO YOU NEED TO BE ON YOUR A GAME FOR (HIGH ENERGY HIGH IMPACT)

Now its time to move on to the second matrix. It’s natural to assume that we should attack the most IMPORTANT tasks FIRST and work through them in priority order.  But some important tasks are harder than others.  And some tasks, whilst they may be important to us they may have less impact than others.

So let me explain what I mean by IMPACT v ENERGY.

IMPACT

To be efficient and effective at work it helps to understand which tasks have the highest impact in relation to your desired outcomes.  Of course only YOU can decide what your desired outcomes are...  It might be revenue or profit. It might be making the world safer or cleaner.  It might be finishing a certain project. Or it could be a desired outcome for your top client because clients love it when we make it about them and ultimately a good outcome for them usually ends up being a good outcome for you.

The tasks that make the most meaningful progress towards your desired outcomes are the highest impact tasks.  Again, my tip here is not to overthink this.  Overthinking is the enemy of prioritisation. The trick is to go with your gut.  You can test and adjust as you go.

The second axis is ENERGY.  We need to identify which tasks are high energy tasks. For example I make a living from delivering keynote speeches. I know that for design and preparation work I need to be on my A game otherwise the temptation is I’ll cut corners and just copy and paste my previous speech.   (And remember the client loves it when you make it about them which means tailoring YOUR speech to THEIR desired outcomes.)So we need to identify our high energy high impact tasks and we need to dedicate our FULL attention to these tasks. In other words our high impact high energy tasks are the ones that we are going to UNITASK.

Yes, you read that right.  We are singling out WHICH TASKS TO UNITASK. Because I am a realist and I don’t expect you to unitask ALL DAY. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE unitasking. It’s the best thing ever.  You could say I’m a fanatic.  But even I DON’T unitask all day every day.  For several reasons.

1. It’s not practical.  Very few of us has the ability to shut themselves off from civilisation and work monastically.
2. It’s hard work (remember giving your full attention takes effort) so it’s draining and can actually kind wear out us.
3. And it’s not always necessary. NOT all tasks are created equal (which is why it’s possible to prioritise). Some tasks have less impact on your desired outcomes. And some are slightly easier on the brain to carry out, such as data entry, or deleting emails from cold callers (whoever thought it was ok to say “I’m just sliding myself to the top of your DMs” - yuk, if this is you, please stop, you’re better than that.)
4. And finally because we are social animals.  We thrive off human connection.  So even if, like me, you could happily shut yourself away all day in flow, hammering away at the laptop (truth time - I’m writing this in my pyjamas at 2pm because I woke up feeling inspired and got completely carried away)  it’s good for us to take a break and engage with some other humans.  And put proper clothes on.

So in the next matrix you’re going to take all of the IMPORTANT tasks and decide which ones are your UNITASKS.

As an added bonus think about WHEN you are going to unitask.

OPTIMISING YOUR UNITASKS TO YOUR HIGH ENERGY TIME OF DAY

Because guess what we tend to pay more attention and achieve deeper focus for longer at HIGH energy times of day.  (Remember concentrating is hard work and the brain is inherently lazy) For many people this will be in the morning because they’ve been recharged by a night’s sleep.  Some will jump out of bed, full of inspiration and want to dive straight into meaty tasks and get them smashed out of the park first thing. Others like to make a coffee, chat to people, or clear out the inbox first. They need a little bit of time to warm up so that they feel ready to take on the HIGH IMPACT HIGH ENERGY tasks (but not so much time that they end up wasting the whole day on filler tasks - feel free to nod wryly if this reminds you of anyone.) Others are night owls and they do their best work at 9pm when the kids are in bed and the inbox has stopped blinking at them (by the way you can turn those notifications off and achieve this at any time of day - just saying)

So take a minute to work out what your HIGH ENERGY TIME OF DAY IS.

From now until forever, schedule that time in your day for unitasking and use it to attack your high energy high impact tasks. Honour that time in your diary the same way you would an appointment with your top client. Or Harry styles.  Or whoever your celebrity crush is.

Ta-dah…. now you have a system that will help you prioritise your workload AND optimise your work schedule to your energy levels. Use this as a starting point.  The truth is everybody can prioritise just fine on their own, so I offer this process to help you get going in case you feel overwhelmed at the idea. I wont be offended if you refine it or discard it down the line. Just start. You’re brilliant Xx

KEY takeaways:

A lack of confidence or practice around prioritising is one the biggest barriers to unitasking.

Start by deciding what your IMPORTANT tasks are. The rest can usually be delegated or discarded.

Categorise your IMPORTANT tasks in terms of IMPACT (progress towards your desired outcomes) and ENERGY (how much effort do these tasks take.)

Schedule high energy high impact tasks for your high energy time of day - these are your UNITASKS.

Try not to overthink any of the above. Just get started.  You can test and adjust as you go.

EXCITING NEWS - this is an extract from the my new book and sequel to FLY HIGHER. I’m writing this book to help brilliant people like you achieve more in your day and feel more zen whilst crushing your business targets. If you’d like to get on the advance reader list get in touch.

If you’d like me to come and talk to your team about prioritisation drop me a line at sarah@sarahfurness.com