This week’s post is actually a paraphrased email to someone who juggles lots of tasks, wondering how it was possible.
In the interest of sharing one way of looking at it, I shared my (loosely held-to) scheme of priorities:
1) Family (with permission to ignore 9-3 on weekdays)
2) Current clients (including former clients; once a client, always a client)
3) Organizational obligations (such as long-term projects, Chamber work, church, ASTD, etc)
4) Responding to correspondence/calls (but always within 24 hours)
5) Potential clients (proposal-writing, networking)
6) Business development (social media interaction, following up on leads, working on my website)
7) Goofing off
A very short post on this topic:
Priorities – why I’m not writing a blog post this week…
When I start to go nuts – herding cats, juggling too many balls – I ask myself:
What’s on my to-do list that serves current clients?
and
Before I get to that, am I caught up on my email?
Then, catch up on email, then turn it off, and do stuff related to current clients. The day I wrote this, that involved setting up some 360 evaluations for two folks, and lighting a fire under some upcoming workshop clients to get me the info that I need.
If there’s stuff that I need to do today to serve clients, I do it and leave everything else behind (mostly). Most days that I’m in the home office, that only takes a couple of hours, then I can move on to priorities 3 and 4. Once 3 (or 4, or 5 depending on the day) o’clock hits, then I release myself from the obligation to continue down the list, and hang with the family. The afternoon I wrote this, my daughter had a friend over and my wife was doing… something upstairs. Dunno what. But, I kept at it until 5ish.
To make it simpler, I prioritize revenue-generating things in which others are relying on me, then move to non-revenue generating things in which others are relying on me, then move to items where no one is relying on me, starting with revenue-generating potential items. Which can be interrupted by correspondence at regular intervals (not non-stop) in order to remember that CONNECTION is the most important part of life.
Within the priority list, I compose to-do lists that are designated A, B, and C, Covey-style.
Related posts (both under 500 words):
Effective leaders stay organized (part one)
Effective leaders stay organized (part two)
Just thoughts from an old man… hope they help!
Please offer your thoughts. What do you think?
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