You know that feeling where everything seems to be top priority?
This happened a lot to me when I worked in the corporate world.
A ton of shiz would land on my plate – and I can’t tell ya how many times I’d go to my supervisor and ask what my #1 priority is…
I’d basically get this answer:
Yeah. Super helpful.
You can’t have “literally all of it” be the top priority in your life.
But even now, as entrepreneurs, biz owners, and creative professionals with more autonomy in our days… it can still feel like we’re faced with competing priorities every freaking day.
And in fact, that’s what I cover in this week’s podcast, if you’re more of a listener-type person. You can
tune into the episode here.
Have you noticed how the universe is super generous? Especially when you’re compressed?
Like… ALLLL the new business comes at once.
ALLLL the requests for meetings happen at once.
ALLLL the travel happens at once.
Which is what’s going on with me at the moment.
I mean… it’s all beautiful and amazing – I am truly blessed to be able to travel as much as I do.
And travel with my family.
But it also impacts other parts of my life.
And DEFINITELY my biz.
Which is why I’ve learned how to plan ahead well – and ensure I’m showing up as a leader in my biz…
Empowering my team to make decisions, get tasks done… and loop me in when necessary.
But it requires PRIORITIZATION.
If you wanna know what to do when the universe is feeling EXTRA generous with you…
Then you should totally steal this hack.
The 2-Step Process to Prioritize Your Life When Everything is #1
The whole point of this process is to take the deluge of to-dos on your plate… and turn them into a manageable list.
So you can stress less… and get more shiz done – better.
It’s about creating a workable SYSTEM.
So you can still get all your daily tasks done… and still have time to invest in NEW opportunities for your biz. And invest in KNOWLEDGE.
Real quick, before we dig into this two step prioritization process… I wanna let you know that I’m opening up the sign up list for my super popular 3 Biz Keys Masterclass.
In this class, I walk you through the 3 step process for building a high converting online marketing funnel.
I know that may sound daunting to some of you. But it's not.
All it means is that I’m going to teach you how to find leads for your biz online. And then convert them into paying customers.
There are 3 class days to choose from:
- Wednesday, April 27th
- Thursday, April 28th
- Monday, May 2nd
Ok, so let’s talk about our tasks priorities.
Step 1: Look at your list of tasks + decide what’s urgent – and what’s important.
Because they’re not always the same thing.
You’re gonna want to filter your list by which things are Urgent and which are Important. And which are neither.
And btw, yes, I know you have a list of tasks already – which is why I went ahead and skipped creating one as a step.
Urgent tasks are things that have to be done that day.
And they have serious consequences if you don’t do them within that time frame.
Maybe it’s losing out on a bonus or commission if you don’t put in a sale by the end of day… or maybe you’ll actually lose a client if you blow the deadline.
In your life, it could be putting money in that parking meter so you don’t get a ticket.
BTW, what a waste of money. Don’t you hate that? Serious pet peeve of mine. Throwing money away on parking tickets….
Blowing off an Urgent task could mean having a pissed off kid because you're late picking her up for school. Again. LOL
Sorry, I’m only laughing because once your kids hit a certain age, it’s like EVERYTHING you do annoys them and makes them mad.
Anyway… consequences.
Urgent tasks have consequences.
And so you wanna address those Urgent to-dos first thing. Yes, before Important ones.
Because if you wait until the end of the day, you increase the risk of missing your deadline. So knock 'em out right away.
One more thing on this… if there are tasks in your list that you categorize as neither Urgent nor Important… they’re not #1 priority.
So go ahead and ignore those – maybe even kick ‘em off your list for right now.
We’re purely focused on organizing conflicting #1 priorities.
Step 2: Take your Important task list and break it down into four categories.
So you have already mapped out your Urgent tasks and decided to do them first.
You should be left with your list of IMPORTANT tasks.
The second step of this process is to organize them into 4 categories:
- Critical priorities.
- High priorities.
- Medium priorities.
- Low priorities.
Here’s what they each mean…
Critical priorities are both time sensitive AND high value.
AKA they gotta be done by you – and they gotta be done within a specific timeframe.
They’re kinda like the next level down from those urgent tasks you did first thing.
This can include putting out fires (figurative ones, like a website form is broken or you have an end of day deadline).
I mean if you have a LITERAL fire, definitely make that a hot priority too. HA – hot priority. LOL
Then we go one level down.
HIGH priorities are not time sensitive but they are important.
And they generally require you specifically or a deep collaboration with someone else.
This would be tasks that involve:
- Critical thinking.
- Planning.
- Focus.
- Your zone of genius.
For example, maybe it’s time to plan out your next quarter projects.
The task isn’t due at the end of day… but it IS important. Because if you don’t do it, it’s gonna have an impact on your biz – and your life.
For your personal life, maybe this means sitting down to run through your finances or update your budget… or work on your taxes.
Here in the US, tax day is right around the corner… so I bet some of you originally had this task in the High priority category and have now shifted it into the Critical category.
Medium priorities are time sensitive but not all that important.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up being a big portion of your Important list… and actually the cause of a lot of your stress.
Medium priorities include things like:
- Meetings.
- Emails.
- Meetings that could have been emails. LOL
- Scheduled phone calls.
- Taking care of your daily work.
I’ll be honest with ya… when I have days with tons of meetings, I actually get super stressed out.
I’ve learned this about myself and now I literally block out whitespace in my day. Because I can’t perform when I’m in back to back meetings for more than like, 1.5–2 hours. My brain goes crazy and I totally slip into scarcity mode.
Maybe you resonate with that.
When you look at your calendar and see all these things on it, does it make you feel overwhelmed?
That’s a clue that Medium tasks are taking over your life – and it’s an invitation to do something different if it’s consistently an issue.
Low priority tasks are neither time sensitive nor high value.
These could be tasks you keep bumping back… or are keeping on your list so you don’t forget about them.
Low priority tasks – and honestly, even some medium priority ones – are prime candidates to hand off to someone else. Or maybe just drop entirely. Or, potentially automate them.
What I’ve discovered is that if you have too many of these Medium and Low priorities tasks cluttering up your list consistently, it actually stresses your brain out.
Because your eyes take in the sheer number of items on your list – and instantly flies into panic mode.
If you’re able to hand those tasks off to someone else – or maybe just organize them differently – you may discover that you don’t have as many pressing priorities as you thought.
And you’ll actually be able to focus… get shiz done… and be way more productive. And not be a constant ball of stress because you have a healthy, high-performing brain.
Now what I’ll tell ya is that when I started organizing my tasks a bit better, I discovered new pockets of time in my day. And I decided to invest that time in the growth of my biz.
For me, spending time with my daughter and being there for her as she grows up is super important to me.
So is having a strong, healthy relationship with my husband. He was complaining before I got organized that I was working all.the.time.
And I can’t have either – the time with Madeline or the healthy relationship with him – if I work all the time.
So for me to grow my biz, be at the level of success I desire, and have family time… I needed to find a way to keep my biz rockin’ even when I wasn’t at the helm.
Which is where marketing funnels come in.
As I touched on in the beginning of the article, a marketing funnel is an automated way to have people join your email…
And use the power of the internet and technology to create relationships, deliver value, and build trust and authority – on a scalable level.
Because you’re never gonna grow if you stay locked into earning money during your quote unquote, working hours. You have a very low ceiling when that’s your biz model.
Automated marketing funnels allow you to be you – and share your light and value with your audience –even when you’re not sitting there working on it.
So if you wanna know how to do this in YOUR biz (even if you don’t currently have an online aspect yet) I invite you to the
3 Biz Keys Masterclass.
These are the days to choose from:
- Wednesday, April 27th
- Thursday, April 28th
- Monday, May 2nd
AKA: I’ll buy your pass for ya.
And you can choose any of the 3 class times I have for ya.
Can’t wait to share the 3 Biz Keys Masterclass with you!
I’ll see ya online.
XO,
Hayley