Kerry Beck’s Blog

I received this article from Marcia of Get Organized Now.  Hope this helps!

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When you prioritize, you’re determining what needs to get done and in what order you should perform those actions. Very often, one may concentrate on getting lots of easy tasks done. But just because you’re crossing off tons of items on your To Do list, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re completing the important stuff–the tasks that will help you achieve your goals.

1. Look into the future. What do you want out of life? Do you want to play guitar well enough to be able to perform for your children? Do you want to travel the country? Do you want to have a beautiful vegetable garden in your backyard? While it is certainly important to get your day- to-day things done, it’s also important to schedule in time for activities that will help you achieve the ‘higher level’ goals you’ve set for yourself.

2. Make a Master List. This is simply a long running list of everything you want to accomplish. It’s in no particular order, but is essentially a holding place and a reference so you don’t forget any activity and so you’re not trying to remember everything that needs to get done.

3. Scan your list and assign A, B or C. Assign each activity one of the following letter codes:

A - Those activities that are important AND urgent and will impact you greatly if you don’t accomplish them right way.

B - Those activities that are important to be done, but not urgent. You have time to accomplish them before they have a great impact on your life.

C - Those activities that may be nice to do sometime, but if you don’t do them you wouldn’t be terribly disappointed.

4. It’s not set in stone. Your letter assignments may change over time. Just because you assign an B priority to one of your activities today, doesn’t mean it has to stay a B priority. It may turn into an A priority or a C priority in the future. Use your priority assignments as a guide, but don’t be reluctant to change them if the need arises.

5. Focus. Now it’s time to focus on just a few activities listed on your Master List. You’ll want to include a mixture of activities on your Daily To Do list. I recommend you choose three A priorities, two B priorities and one C priority. Each day, you’ll have a total of 6 activities to focus on.

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