Practical Methods To Prioritize Work

1. Beware the seduction of task-based lists: the process can create a sense a false sense of satisfaction once you cross intems off the list.
2. Focus solely on themes that will drive growth: You have to understand the key drivers of your business and anything that doesn’t move those drivers isn’t a high priority.
3. Forget perfectionism: You have to be willing to do things half way just to get more done with the higher chances to yield strong results.
4. Do the hardest thing first: It eliminates the nagging dread that will sap energy away from other tasks as you postpone the inevitable. 
5. Don’t plug leaky boat holes -- switch boats. Time spent bailing is time taken away from adding more profitable vessels to your fleet.

The process of finding what is important to work on could be translated into this series of simple questions:

• Do I truly have to do this thing now?
• If the answer is Yes, is this “The Most Important Thing?”
• If not, where does it fit in relation to the other tasks?
• Is someone waiting on me for this?
• If so, when do they need it?
• Does working/not working on this now have long-term consequences that I am not aware of?

Go through your list, review each task, and decide what you want to do with it. You have 4 options:

• Do: complete the task now
• Defer: complete it later
• Delegate: assign it to someone else
• Delete: remove it from your list