How should i prioritize

Once you're finished doing, delegating, and deleting tasks, what you have left are your deferred tasks. These are all things you need to do that will take longer than two minutes to complete. With a master list of your deferred tasks in hand, you're ready to start prioritizing. There are plenty of ways to prioritize tasks, and some may work better for you than others. Review the tactics below, pick the one that feels right, and then get to prioritizing. Take all of your tasks and assign each a priority based on this priority matrix from Steven Covey :.

Anything that's due soon or overdue counts as urgent. As for what's truly important and what's more of a "nice to do" task—that's up to you to decide, but try to be as honest as you can. This tool is particularly helpful for those times when you're drowning under a million things to do, as it helps you visualize what's really important and what can wait. Once you've laid out your tasks, aim to get through the urgent and important tasks first so you're not butting up against deadlines.

Then you can focus on the most productive quadrant: not urgent and important. These are the tasks that are easy to put off but provide lots of value when they do get done.

And whatever you do, avoid the busy work and time wasters that land in the not urgent and not important quadrant as much as you can. Categorizing your tasks using a priority matrix helps, but what if you still have dozens of tasks in your urgent and important queue?

How do you know where to start? A helpful next step is to assign each task a priority number. If you have ten tasks, each task gets a number You can't have two number ones. The exercise here is to weigh each task against the others in order to determine where to start first. For example, say your list consists of three items:. By looking at all three tasks, it's obvious that filing your taxes needs to be your number-one priority: It's the most urgent and important task on your list.

For your other two tasks, it depends on context, and comparing your to-dos with each other often helps provide that context. Maybe the presentation isn't due until next week, but you need to get some information from your boss before you can start putting the presentation together.

That might make it a higher priority than completing the assignment that's due tomorrow. In these cases, it's also helpful to break your tasks down into smaller tasks to better assign relative prioritizations. So instead of:. To-do list apps and Kanban apps that allow for drag-and-drop prioritization can be really helpful when using the relative prioritization technique.

Instead of numbering your list, you can drag and drop tasks into priority order. Assigning relative priorities works well if your task list is fairly static, but if you're adding several to-dos to your list every day, reprioritizing your list becomes another task in and of itself. If you have to manage a lot of incoming to-dos, it helps to make a prioritized task list each morning for the things you plan to do that day.

Look at your calendar and see how much time you think you'll have to devote to items on your task list today. Next, pick however many of the highest-priority tasks on your list that you think you can get through today. Ignore everything else you could be doing until you're ready to plan tomorrow's list.

I like to include any calendar events on my "Today" list so I see an overview of my entire day and set my expectations accordingly. This also stops me from planning too many tasks on days I'm in meetings for hours. Time-blocking apps like Plan free for members are great for this exercise because they let you create a master to-do list and then drag and drop to-dos onto your calendar to schedule them into your day. A good rule of thumb when planning your day is to underestimate how much you can get done and overestimate how long each task will take.

No doubt you've got plenty of things you can do if you happen to check everything off your list for today, which is a much better feeling that always moving unfinished tasks over to tomorrow. Having trouble estimating how long tasks will take you to complete? Use these estimation techniques to come up with more realistic estimates for your tasks. It's very simple: your MIT is the task you most want or need to get done today.

If you're prioritizing your tasks each day and still struggling to get things done, try using the Most Important Tasks or MITs method. Choose a few usually three tasks to get done each day; those become your MITs. When using MITs, your to-do list would have of these, and anything else listed would become bonus, "nice to do if you have the time" tasks.

You only work on bonus tasks if all your MITs are done—and if all you get through are your MITs, you've still had a successful day. We're getting into ruthless territory now.

When you're really struggling to get anything done, you should try this method, even if temporarily. When you look at your task list, pick a single thing to focus on that day. Allocate time to prioritizing your most urgent tasks earlier in the day. Prioritizing based on urgency also alleviates some of the stress when approaching a tight deadline or high pressure workload demands.

Check to see if there are any high-priority dependencies that rely on you finishing up a piece of work now. Be sure to contact any member of your team that can help finish any dependencies earlier in the day. Take a look at your important work and identify what carries the highest value to your business and organization. As a general practice, you want to recognize exactly which types of tasks are critical and have top priority over the others. Another way to assess value is to look at how many people are impacted by your work.

In general, the more people involved or impacted, the higher the stakes. Below are some helpful references to assess the value and importance of your tasks. If you have tasks that seem to tie for priority standing, check their estimates , and start on whichever one you think will take the most effort to complete. Productivity experts suggest the tactic of starting the lengthier task first. It can be motivating to check a small task off the list before diving into deeper waters.

Managing uncertainty is hard work. Uncertainty and change are given. Know that your priorities will change, and often when you least expect them to.

So plan for the unexpected. While working on such tasks, try to forecast other project requirements that will follow your priorities so you can better prepare for what lies ahead. Be realistic. After you prioritize your tasks and look at your estimates, cut the remaining tasks from your list, and focus on the priorities that you know you must and can complete for the day.

While cutting your prioritization list down, focus on the main things that will bring you feelings of accomplishment for the day. Then take a deep breath, dive in, and be ready for anything. When everything feels like number one on your to-do list, it can be overwhelming. If I feel like my workload is getting unmanageable, I speak with my team lead to discuss which tasks I can move to the bottom of my priority list. This helps keep me from getting overwhelmed, and I can reevaluate my expectations about my deadlines.

When the interviewer asks about your ability to prioritize your workload, be sure you connect the examples in your answer to the job requirements. For instance, if you're interviewing for an administrative assistant position, describe how you organize your administrative tasks such as responding to client emails, disseminating information for senior executives and communicating with customers.

Relating how you prioritize key tasks of the job can demonstrate how you fit the job's requirements and understand the expectations of the role. Example: "I prioritize my work according to company objectives and what is expected of me as an office administrator.

I organize my workload to reflect my most urgent priorities, such as corresponding with clients and communicating team updates. I follow my urgent tasks with my important organizational tasks, like creating the topic outlines for our monthly team conferences. When I prioritize my work this way, I still have room for any changes in priorities while maintaining a healthy balance between my work and personal life. When providing your answer, be sure to use the STAR method to introduce the situation , identify the task you had to complete, outline the actions you took and reveal the results that you achieved.

This method enables you to fully demonstrate your skills in action in the workplace. Use the following examples to help you answer the interviewer:. Then, I establish a clear deadline for myself that's usually a day in advance of company due dates. Recently, I had to shift around my workload to accommodate an urgent product order.

The client wanted custom modifications to the product completed in a week, but our normal lead time for implementing modifications is around 10 to 14 days. I communicated with my production department and manufacturing team to implement urgent changes in the production timeline.

These adjustments allowed us to ship the product to the client on time, effectively reducing the time it took to apply the customizations by three days. Since some of my software projects can take longer than others, I communicate with clients about their expectations for completion. I use the client's input to help me organize my most urgent tasks and to set deadlines for myself for completing projects. Then, I create a document to share with my team lead so they know which tasks I'm working through and which tasks I'm moving toward the end of the week.

Then, I create a to-do list based on our company shareholders' business objectives. Since analyzing risk and costs are typically among my most urgent tasks, I usually complete my risk and cost analyses documentation assignments first. Once completed, I collaborate again with senior analysts to ensure my work meets my supervisors' and stakeholders' expectations.