How to prioritize your work

Regardless of whether you’re a student, a work-from-home mom, a web designer, or a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, prioritizing your work is critical to your success. Not prioritizing your workload usually results in being extremely inefficient and extremely stressed. How many times have you thought to yourself “I have so much to do today, how am I going to achieve it all?”

There is no exact science to prioritize, but there are several tips that should help you become a more efficient and less stressed version of your current self:

• Make a List – This may seem like a no-brainer, but you’ll be surprised at how many people try to organize their tasks in their head. You will often find that you feel much better just taking everything out so you can see it in one place.
• Consider time constraints: what you absolutely need to do today and what you can wait until tomorrow or next week. Everything may be important eventually, but some things are more important now.
• Consider people’s limitations – All other things being equal, move the things other people expect to the top of the list. If you know that your manager can’t finish your proposal without your part, that’s more important than what you always do on Wednesday and that could also be done on Thursday.
• Consider the consequences: will you be fired if you don’t do something? Will another task give you the inside clue on that promotion? Those things should be more important than slightly annoying the sales manager by replying to his email a day late.
• Reprioritize as needed – let’s face it, priorities change. As they do so, update your list. It will give you a sense of control over the situation.
• Eliminate unimportant items – Is there something on your list that you always push last and never end up doing? Then take it off the list. It doesn’t belong there.
• Don’t list EVERYTHING, just list the crucial tasks. You don’t need to list routine tasks (like lunch) or minor tasks (like checking your email). Plus, you’re getting into too much detail if you treat prioritization as a chore.
• Do your best to keep your list small; this means saying NO sometimes. You are not other people’s squirrel. Do your job and help other people with yours when you have something to offer, but don’t do their job for them. Along the same lines, learn to delegate things to the people who are supposed to do them. Why book your plane tickets when you have an assistant for that?