As an entrepreneur, you wear many hats and execute various roles. You’re the head of marketing, answering emails, attending to clients, and managing various business responsibilities. Besides running a business, you’re balancing a completely different role in your personal life, whether you’re a mother, best friend, sister, or caretaker. With countless responsibilities and tasks, your life might feel like everything is on fire, and you only have one bucket of water. Fortunately, the proper prioritization techniques will prevent your life from burning down.
One of the simplest prioritization methods is known as the Important Urgent Method. With this technique, you focus on dividing all of your tasks into easy-to-complete categories, keeping in mind that you don’t need to do everything at once.
Important and urgent tasks
When writing out your to-do list, consider what tasks you need to do. You may think to yourself, “I need to do everything!” Try dividing your list of to-do items by the following criteria:
- Which tasks have a deadline?
- Which tasks contribute to my bottom line?
- Which tasks help me maintain my lifestyle?
Considering these strategic objectives encourages a natural prioritization.
Important but not urgent
If a task is important but doesn’t need to be completed right away, schedule it for later. Examples of important but not urgent tasks include brand building, networking, skill development, and other functions that contribute to the long-term growth of your business. As for tasks that might contribute to your personal growth, like scheduling time to exercise or spending time with close friends, these can seem less important on the list. Keeping your appointments to laugh, expend energy, or simply rest should remain a priority on your list even if they are not urgent.
Not important but urgent
Not important but urgent tasks are the things you’re being pressured to get done but you do not have time to do them due to time being dedicated to those important, urgent tasks. You probably need to pay immediate attention to these things but they don’t contribute meaningfully to long-term goals or your well-being.
Within your business, this can include replying to non-essential emails, dealing with minor customer service issues, and scheduling impromptu conference calls that were requested only 30 minutes prior. To help you cross these tasks off your to-do list, try delegating them to someone on your team or hiring a virtual assistant if you’re a solo entrepreneur. In your personal life, canceling or renewing certain subscriptions, fixing the squeaky door in your bedroom, and other minor inconveniences.
Not important and not urgent
You probably just threw these tasks on your to-do list without much thought. They have little to do with helping you complete your goals; they don’t impact much of your daily life, and you most likely feel obligated to do them. What do you do with these tasks? The answer is simple: eliminate them. Otherwise, you can waste time and energy.
In business, these tasks usually creep up, such as having nonessential meetings, webinars with leaders who aren’t in your industry, revising old work irrelevant to your current job, or constantly checking notifications. In your personal life, you might find yourself constantly rearranging furniture, online shopping without a purpose, binging shows, etc. Now and then, it is fun to indulge. Keeping these tasks to a minimum, however, only helps your productivity in the end.
Other things to consider when prioritizing work and life tasks
Now that you have the concept down, you’re ready to apply it. Here are some additional tips to consider as you reorganize your life. While you probably have some business goals in mind, take time to consider your goals outside of work. Are you looking to create stronger relationships within your family? Do you want to develop new skills, improve things around the house, etc.?
Write them down and post them somewhere you can see them every day. This way, when you prioritize your tasks, you can always refer back to your goals to help guide you.
At the beginning of each week, instead of dumping everything you need to do on one giant list, use deadlines to help separate tasks you need to do. Create a list for today. These are the urgent and important tasks that must be done as soon as possible. Create a list for the week. These are the essential but not urgent tasks you have a bit of time to do. Remember to try to schedule these tasks so they are easier to complete. Create a list for the month. Think back to your goals, what can you do this month to bring you closer to them?
Depending on your goal, you can take this list-building technique even further and create lists for the following month or the next three months.
Once you’ve decided when to do certain tasks, it’s time to get more specific with time blocking. This time management technique helps you assign particular time blocks for specific tasks. For example, you can block out four hours daily for urgent and essential tasks, one hour a week for self-care, and three hours on the weekend for family time. Time blocking can help you prioritize your tasks and see what you have time to do.
You can’t be everywhere at once, and you can’t do all the things. You may feel pressure from clients, coworkers, family members, and friends to fulfill certain duties. To avoid becoming burnt out, it’s essential to set boundaries. These boundaries can include not checking your email after a specific time, turning off your phone when you’re with family members, or stopping working at a particular hour. When you set boundaries, you can focus on what truly matters.
Having a prioritization system can be helpful, but it doesn’t mean things will work out perfectly right away. If you find yourself overwhelmed, you may need to reevaluate your priorities. As you create your to-do list, consider why each item needs to be completed. If you don’t know why something is on your list, it may be time to remove it. Being an entrepreneur and having a life is a balancing act. Some days will go better than others; some weeks will run more smoothly than others. All in all, you have to find what works for you. Don’t be afraid to fail now and then; always push yourself to keep moving forward.
