Sorting Out Your Priorities

How big is your to do list? If it is like mine, you have more things to do than you could possibly ever accomplish. In order to not have this drive you crazy, you have to sort out your priorities.

Sorting out your priorities is easier than you think. The reason most people don’t do it is because they don’t want to have to think or make hard choices. So don’t.

Don’t tackle your to do list yet. First figure out what it is you value. Why do you work? Why do you do what you do?  Is it to feed your family? Is it to have fame and fortune?  What is it that is important to you?  And don’t just list your values, prioritize them. Which of the many things you value are more important that others.

If you are like most people, spending time with your family and friends will be more important to you than having a satisfying job or being famous or wealthy. That is assuming being famous and or wealthy are on your list of things you want for yourself. And if you do – ask yourself why – what is it you want to accomplish by being wealthy and famous – that will help you better understand your true motivations and values.

Once you know what is important to you – truly important to you, you are now in a position to tackle your to do list. Those things that contribute to your main priorities are the things you prioritize in your list.  Yes, you have to balance things and work has to be prioritized because without that you can’t feed or clothe or house your family or yourself.

But if you do this, you will find that a lot of your to do list isn’t actually all that important. And being able to deprioritize tasks helps you sort out your priorities.  If something would be nice to get done, but doesn’t really impact anything if it doesn’t get done, deprioritize it.

The nice thing about this is the more you do it, the easier it gets. When you don’t do something and the world doesn’t fall apart, you will gain confidence in your decisions on what to prioritize and what not to.

And if you make a mistake in your prioritizing and it turns out something was really important, go ahead and reprioritize.  Finding balance in life is an active and ongoing process. Your priorities are changing all the time and the demands being placed on you will change to. What shouldn’t change that much – is your underlying values that allow you to prioritize your to do list in the first place.

Feeling Overwhelmed?

If you are doing too much, goal setting can help you prioritize.

If you are competent, you are busy. Sometimes too busy. People are always asking you to help out and take on a bit more work. So in addition to your work, your family and the upkeep of the house, you also have volunteering and hobbies and well, life.

I am also an entrepreneur. There are all sorts of things I could and should be doing to support my business, but the reality is, I have time constraints. I can’t do everything.

Yet, I don’t feel overwhelmed. My secret? I understand my goals so that I can prioritize.

Knowing what you want to accomplish, and more importantly why you want to accomplish helps you sort through the day to day demands and prioritize those that are critical, that that need to be done and those that would be nice to do.

Lots of people have a to do list. What they have trouble with is deciding which stuff can wait. In order to prioritize your to-do list, you have to know why those items are on your list in the first place.

We have primary goals and secondary goals and then intermediary goals that help us achieve our secondary and primary goals.  My primary goal is to live life fully and to leave the world a better place.  All my secondary goals, like create a business to help people learn how to stop bullies are in support of my primary goal.  My intermediate goals, like call on companies to talk to them about buying my sexual harassment trainings, are intermediate goals, designed to help me achieve my secondary goal which will help me achieve my primary goal of making the world a better place.

The reason it’s important to have a goal hierarchy is because you can’t prioritize your to-do list if your goals your to-do list are in support of aren’t prioritized! When I am in a time crunch, I look at my to do list and it’s very easy to sort into must do and can wait. Why? Because I have my priorities straight.

To learn more how to do this – take my ecourse: Planning for Personal Success at:  https://humanistlearning.com/planforpersonalsuccess/