Self-management: 3 ideas for getting your priorities right
1. No more hectic activism
Don’t fool yourself: In hectic phases, your daily routine is almost always determined by urgencies. The result: Although they had their hands full, they still didn’t get anything important done. The question arises why? Because being busy has nothing to do with productive work and you are not getting any closer to your real goals.
Stressful situations in particular are predestined for the fact that the overview is quickly lost and you can only separate the important from the unimportant with great difficulty. If you are approached with new projects at such moments, take a step back and check very carefully whether these tasks actually (now) have to be completed.
Perhaps it makes much more sense to postpone them until later? And if that’s the case, set a specific date for it right away.
2. Always set priorities in writing
Since you are confronted with many tasks every day, it makes sense to write down what has top priority and what the further gradations are. Because once you write something down, your subconscious becomes much more involved than if you were just thinking about it.
Creating a priority list also requires some thought. And it can sometimes happen that a task that appears to be extremely important at first glance falls back to second or even third place on closer inspection. In this way, you can often recognize different approaches to a solution while writing them down. Therefore, purely mental priority planning only works to a limited extent.
Once you have set your priorities, transfer them to your calendar and block the necessary time for them at the same time.
3. Courage to delegate
Do you think that only what you make yourself makes sense? Is that really the case? Or do you sometimes not expect too much? Those who are reluctant to delegate often do not trust others to be able to do this work just as well or just as quickly. But especially when the hectic pace increases and more and more pours in on you, you can lose track of things pretty quickly.
On top of that, you lack the confidence to be able to meet all deadlines. In such moments, jump over your shadow and think about who could help you. And when someone helps you, reciprocate when the time comes, because getting help shouldn’t be a one-way street.