Setting priorities makes sure that we get important things done and don’t spend our time putting out fires or doing things that don’t contribute to our goals. In this episode, Shannon and Janine talk about various methods for prioritizing and how, once again, it all boils down to knowing what’s important to you.
Discussion topics include:
- Various matrixes to help you prioritize
- Making time for the important, not just the urgent (hint: it’s worthwhile to prioritize setting up systems that will eventually save you time)
- Eating the frog
- The birthday present Shannon gives to herself every March
- A daily routine that helps you maintain your priorities but still go with the flow
- Shannon’s progress toward creating a great morning routine that involves picking her top priority for the day
- How knowing what’s important to you helps you do everything more easily
- Prioritizing and budgeting (time and money)
Here are Janine’s quick sketches of the matrixes we talked about:
Want to/have to matrix
Urgent/important (Eisenhower) matrix
Links:
- The Morning Sidekick Journal that’s helping Shannon so much
- You Need a Budget
I have been using the Eisenhower Matrix for years even though I didn’t know that was what it was called. A teacher in-service day brought it to my attention. When I was in the hospital for a long time and kept thinking of things I needed to do when I got out, I used this matrix to set out what I needed to do and when. It helped me to create daily to-do lists and schedule my tasks because I was putting my effort into things that were important and, quite often, urgent. I haven’t used the Want to Do/Have to Do matrix but copied down the info so that if I ever need to use it I will have it in my files. Thanks for another great show!
Oh, and I read Eat That Frog! back in February. I read one (very) short chapter per day over the course of three weeks so that I could start to implement many of his suggestions for productivity and overcoming procrastination. Got it cheap at Half-Price Books for a few bucks and worth every penny.