3 Easy Steps to Prioritizing Your Day

We all live busy lives, and finding the time to fit everything into our schedule can be frustrating.  I struggle with this often, so this post is for me as much as it is for you 🙂

A while ago, my dad gave me a book to read called Eat That Frog! – it’s about beating procrastination and getting things done.  Basically, the book uses the following example:

Imagine you had to eat a live frog every day.  Getting it done first thing in the morning is ideal because then you’re not thinking about it constantly, and your day is more enjoyable.  However, if you waited until right before bed to eat it, the task hangs over your head like a cloud for the whole day.

One of the methods in this book helped me greatly – do the important things first.

Here are 3 steps to prioritizing your day (do this the night before):

1 – Make a list of everything you want to do the next day.  It doesn’t have to be in any particular order, just list out all the things that need to get done.

2 – Prioritize your list.  Find the most important thing on the list (the thing that absolutely MUST get done that day), and put a “1” by it (hint – this is often the thing you are least excited to do).  Now find the second most important thing and put a “2” next to it.  Continue to do this for the remainder of the list.

3 – Write each of these tasks in number order on your list.

When you wake up in the morning, do these tasks in the order they fall on your list.  Tackle task #1 until it is complete and do not start task #2.  After task #1 is finished, move on to #2 and so on.

You might not get everything on the list done, and that’s ok.  We only have 24 hours anyway.  Add the unfinished items to the next day’s list.

One final word of caution – don’t procrastinate.  Watching YouTube videos and other distractions are more than likely NOT on your priority list 🙂

It feels so good when you know you’ve accomplished what you know you needed to accomplish!  Try this method for one day, and see what a difference it can make!

 

Until next time,

Hope Frances