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activities. But as soon as you get married and have children, your values change dramatically. Almost overnight, your spouse and your children take precedence over everything else. And when your values change, you become a different person.
The starting point of managing your time, and setting your priorities, is for you to think through who you are, and what is really important to you. Once you have done that, you continually organize and reorganize your activities so that what matters most always comes first.
Listen to Your Intuition
You can use the “inner peace test” to determine whether or not what you are doing is the best thing for you. You can always tell if it is right for you because, whenever you are doing something that is in complete alignment with your values, you feel happy inside.
Whenever you do something that is inconsistent with your values and with your own personal organization of priorities, you feel uncomfortable. You experience stress. You get little enjoyment from your work or activities.
Sometimes people work at jobs that they don’t enjoy. As a result, they feel frustrated and dissatisfied. This is not because there is anything wrong with the job. It simply means that this particular job is wrong for that particular person.
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This is an important point to understand. There are many jobs, and parts of many jobs, that you don’t enjoy and which you instinctively avoid. It is easy to slip into the belief that there is something wrong with the job or the company, when neither may be true. The job is a good job, but it is not the right job for you. The company may be a good company, but your position in it is not aligned and attuned with your unique set of values, convictions and talents.
Look Into Yourself
What parts of your life and work give you the greatest pleasure and satisfaction? What parts of your life are the most successful? Where are your activities out of synchrony with your basic values and convictions? Where are they in harmony?
In setting your priorities and organizing your life, imagine that you could change anything, in any way you wanted. Imagine that you owned the entire company and you could design your ideal job so that you were doing only the things that you most enjoyed all day long. What changes would you make?
Apply zero based thinking to your work. Ask continually, “If I were not doing this today, knowing what I now know, would I get into it again today?”
In our seminars we often talk about the “C” word. This word stands for
“Courage.” When you begin to examine yourself and your life on the basis 100
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of your values, and what is really important to you, you have to develop the courage to follow wherever this line of reasoning leads. And it often leads to your making fundamental changes in the way you live your life and do your work.
If you say that one of your most important values is “peace of mind,” or personal happiness, then you have to be willing to stand back and look at your life honestly and objectively. Then go through your life systematically and adjust or eliminate those situations and activities that take away your feelings of inner peace and personal happiness.
Clear Values Lead to Clear Priorities
Once you are clear about your values, either at home or at work, it is much easier for you to set priorities. I conducted a value setting exercise with a large national corporation some time ago. When we started, they had 250
projects that they were working on, at various stages of completion. By the time we had determined the true values and strengths of the company, fully 80% of those projects had been crossed off and discontinued. By practicing values clarification, the company was able to get back to focusing on the things that it did the best, and enjoyed the most.
When you evaluate your goals and objectives to assure that they are consistent with your values, and with what is most important to you, you can more easily set priorities that are in harmony with the very best person you can be.
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Apply the Pareto Principle
The starting point of setting priorities, once you have determined your values, is to apply the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 Rule, to every part of your life.
This rule was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who formulated it in 1895. He concluded, after many years of research, that society could be divided into two groups of people. The first group, 20% of the population, he called the “vital few,” the people and families who controlled 80% of the wealth of Italy. The other 80% he called the “trivial many,” those who controlled only 20% of the wealth.
Further experimentation proved that the 80/20 Rule applied to virtually all economic activities. According to this principle, 20% of what you do will account for 80% of the value of all the things you do. If you have a list of ten items to work on at the beginning of the day, two of those items will usually be more valuable and important than all the others put together. Your job is therefore to determine the top 20% of tasks before you begin.
The 80/20 Rule Prevails In All Areas
In your business, you will find that 20% of your customers account for 80%
of your revenues. 20% of your products or services account for 80% of your profits. 20% of your salespeople make 80% of your sales. You will even find that 20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your problems. The 80/20 Rule reigns supreme.
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In your personal life, this rule also applies. 20% of what you do with your family will give you 80% of the results, rewards and satisfactions that you enjoy. 80% of the time that you go out for dinner, you will go to 20% of the restaurants that you are familiar with. When you go to your favorite restaurants you will order the same dish 80% of the time.
In your work, before you start doing anything, you always ask, “Is what I am about to do among the top 20% of activities that account for 80% of the value of everything I do?” Every hour of every day you should apply this principle to your work. Take time to think before you act, and then concentrate on the 20% of the tasks and activities that represent the highest payoff for you and your company.
Separate the Urgent from the Important
In setting priorities, it is important that you remember to separate the urgent from the important. Remember that the urgent is seldom important, and the important is seldom urgent.
An urgent task is something that must be dealt with immediately. It is usually determined by forces external to yourself, like your boss or your customers. Very often it is a ringing telephone or an unexpected interruption from a coworker. These are all urgent because they are “in your face.” But they are often not important in terms of their long-term value.
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Perhaps the most important word in setting priorities is the word
“consequences.” Something that is important is something that has serious potential consequences for doing it or not doing it. Something that is unimportant is something for which there are few or no consequences.
Sometimes, it doesn’t matter if it is done at all.
Important tasks, on the other hand, are those that can be put off or procrastinated upon in the short-term. These are the bigger, more difficult and more important tasks that can have serious long-term consequences on your life and work. But they are seldom urgent, at least at the beginning.
Your Top Priorities
The most pressing tasks on your lists are those tasks that are both urgent and important. They have to be done immediately. There are significant potential consequences for doing them or not doing them.
You should organize your workday so that you first of all stay on top of the tasks that are both urgent and important. These are things that must be done immediately, and usually have tight timelines.
Once you are caught up with your urgent and important tasks, you should turn your attention to those tasks that are important but not urgent. The more time you can spend working on important tasks with serious long-term potential consequences, the more effective you become and the more you will accomplish.
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Identify Your Limiting Step
An important technique for setting priorities revolves around what is called the “Limiting Step Principle.” Between you and any goal you want to accomplish, there is almost invariably a limiting factor, or bottleneck, that determines the speed at which you accomplish your goal. One of the keys to personal effectiveness is to look at each job and ask, “What one factor determines how quickly I complete this job?”