Setting Priorities – Important or Urgent

Every now and again I’m asked how I cope with working in the home office with all the added distractions that occur, well one of the things that I find most helpful is to prioritise my workload.

Firstly I make a list of all the tasks that need doing then I go through them and mark each one as to whether it is important or urgent.

Anything marked both important and urgent I transfer to my white board, this is the immediate to-do list.

Next come the important and not urgent tasks, these are where ideally most of the workload should be that way we keep as many tasks as possible out of the more stressful important and urgent area, these are also added to the whiteboard and hopefully I can get many of them cleared before they move up the scale.

Urgent but not important cut out these tasks and you are well on the way to freeing up more time for the tasks above.

Finally not urgent and not important don’t even consider doing these they quiet simply a waste of valuable time, often the tasks in this group are things you do day in day out from sheer habit.

By cutting out non important tasks I have found that more time is freed up for the important things in life, not just work but family, friends, lifestyle and recreation, try it you may just end up getting through the day with a little less stress.