Group tasks according to their importance, urgency & time | | Based on your rankings for each task, place each one of them in the order of their priority. The correct order of your list will be: Pick up children from the school, Pick up dry-cleaning, Pick up groceries, Go to the gym, Walk the dog, and Visit a friend. |
Decide about the urgency of your tasks | | The urgency of your tasks must be based upon looming deadlines. You must always defer tasks of low urgency and importance. In the above example, visiting a friend falls in this category. |
Do the most important and urgent things first | | Among the most important/urgent ones, pick those that require the least time/effort to do first. |
Your list might look like this | | Pick up children from the school. H H S
Walk the dog. M M M
Visit a friend. L L L
Go to the gym. M M M
Pick up dry-cleaning. H H M
Pick up groceries. H H L |
Compare all the tasks in your list | | Highlight the most immediate and pressing tasks that need the minimum amount of effort. |
First and foremost, make a list of all your to-do tasks | | When you have a lot of things to do and not sure about the order in which to do these tasks, just make a list of all the tasks. Your list need not be necessarily in the order of their priority. |
List your tasks randomly; then, identify your priorities | | Its much easier to prioritize if you concentrate on one area at a time. Ideally, choose office work, house work, other errands, or visiting friends. List your tasks at random. Keep the number of things to-do to fewer than 12. Choose five or six things that are absolutely important to you. |
Your list could read like this | | Pick up children from the school.
Walk the dog.
Visit a friend.
Go to the gym.
Pick up dry-cleaning.
Pick up groceries. |
Against each task, mark its importance | | You can use H for High priority, M for Medium priority, or L for Low Priority. |
Next, mark the urgency of each of these tasks | | Mark the urgency of all these tasks considering a looming deadline. Again, for ranking each task by its urgency, use H for High priority, M for Medium priority, or L for Low Priority. |
Mark the amount of effort necessary to complete each task | | Lastly, complete the amount of effort needed to finish each of these tasks. For ranking each task by the amount of effort needed, use L for long time, M for medium time, or S for short time. |
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