Do You Know This About Prioritizing?

Prioritizing is the key to reaching your goals, getting desired results, being more productive, and enjoying better relationships, and that’s just the beginning!

The problem is you are probably juggling a lot, not to mention all that’s vying for your attention!

We don’t naturally prioritize!

Thinking Back…

To summers when I was a kid, I had the luxury of rolling out of bed at my leisure and spending the remainder of my day following my nose – playing a game of four-square or hopscotch, running in the sprinklers, riding my bike, or hanging out with friends. Whatever grabbed my attention determined how I spent my day – that’s what I loved about summers growing up!

Don’t get me wrong! There’s something amazing about meandering through your day! You need space in your weeks like that so, hopefully you regularly carve out time to do just that.

As an adult, you have responsibilities and tasks that must get done as well as others that you want to get done. When your plate is fully loaded, or even overflowing, how do you know what’s really important and deserving of your time, energy, and resources?

Beware!

It’s possible to be perpetually in motion and accomplish a bunch of good tasks and still not be doing what’s most important. In fact, doing life that way often adds up to feeling frazzled and frustrated – maybe even a little resentful!

Prioritizing is not something you do once and your done. No, it’s an ongoing process! As circumstances change throughout your day, you will need to re-prioritize again and again. Being able to do that skillfully is what makes it possible for some to get results and for others to be exhausted with not much to show for all their efforts.

When it comes to your life and work, how successfully are you executing around your priorities? If this is an area you struggle, perhaps it’s time to rethink your approach to prioritizing and stop fooling yourself into believing that if you tackle the urgent or the easy it will all work out.

It’s the ability to prioritize that separates those who are successful from those who aren’t.

When you put what’s most important first, life just works out better! That means…

Putting God First

Regularly spending time in His presence and getting to know Him in a deeper and more intimate way. Diligently seeking Him regarding all aspects of your life and depending on Him.

Putting God first may be something you want to do, maybe even feel like you are doing, and yet it’s all too common to go through the motions and not actually connect with or make God a priority at all!

Taking Care of You

It’s nearly impossible to invest in and care for others without doing the same for yourself. You probably know what it’s like to live life from an empty place and how it has negatively impacted your attitude, relationships – especially with those who are closest to you, your work, your creativity, and much more.

Are you making it a priority to eat in a healthy way, drink enough water, exercise regularly, take breaks, get enough sleep, grow, and engage in activities that energize you?

Treasuring & Loving People Well

Did you know that one of the easiest ways to evaluate your level of maturity is by examining how you treat the people in your life? Think about this…

• How valued do your family and friends feel?
• What is your reaction when the people in your life get in the way of you getting something done?
• How present are you when interacting with others?
• Do people hesitate to reach out to you because they feel like you don’t have time for them?
• When feeling stressed, how do treat those around you?

When your priorities are in order those you come in contact with will sense the love and care you have for them.

Achieving Your Goals

It’s all too common when pursuing an important goal to work against yourself by putting your goal at the top of the priority list rather than putting God first, and caring for yourself and others before your goal.

You think if you really hustle you will enjoy the fruits of your labors but that’s not the way it works. There’s an order and when you align with that order the process is actually easier!

When pursuing your goals, how well do you maintain that order?

Want to enjoy the benefits that naturally occur when you live out of your priorities? Consider the following:

1. The Most Important Matters Whisper and the Least Important Matters Shout

You are bombarded with e-mails, Facebook and LinkedIn notifications, and phone calls that shout with a “ding” and try to convince you they are urgent matters! The temptation is to drop everything and attend to them right now.

All of that will still be there after you complete the more important task that you were already working on. Focus! Practice completing the task you are working on before you check emails and notifications.

Turn off your phone, log out of your e-mail and Facebook. Whatever it takes.

Eliminate social media emails from your phone. I know that’s been a game changer for me!

Set aside uninterrupted time where you are unavailable to complete important tasks. Then be sure to communicate those boundaries. People will respect your boundaries when they know you will follow up with them when you are able to give your undivided attention.

2. The Necessity of Reflecting

It’s remarkably beneficial to carve out time to process, reflect, and strategize! It’s also a great opportunity for you to assess what’s on your plate, determine your current priorities, plan, and strategize. In order to refine and how you are doing life and work you need time to think.

Without regularly stepping back to view the big picture, you will keep doing what you are doing, probably work harder than you need to, and miss what’s truly important.

Yes, reflecting requires some of your valuable time, but, if done well, it is actually an amazing time saver!

3. Do You Know What Progress Feels Like?

Initially, progress feels uncomfortable – it’s new!

Sometimes, progress feels like a lot of effort with very little movement, at least in the beginning. If you expect progress to be easy and fast, you are going to be disappointed. The process of making progress is often an up and down, backwards and forwards, and even a little sideways one. Be kind to yourself and let any forward momentum count!

It’s natural to do what’s easy, but if you are operating out of your priorities, you will do what will have the greatest impact regardless of the difficulty level. Sometimes progress feels hard!

4. Practicing Hard Stuff

If prioritizing was easy, more people would successfully be reaching their goals, enjoying a healthy lifestyle, and accomplish some pretty amazing things.

If you aren’t in the habit of doing what’s hard, then you are highly unlikely to prioritize.

Prioritizing requires you to challenge your expectations, confront your fears, question your methods, and to take risks that are outside your comfort zone. And along the way you will have to make some very tough decisions. That’s why It’s so good to practice doing hard stuff rather than letting yourself off the hook.

5. Getting Good at Saying No

There will always be oodles of “good” things vying for your attention, but that doesn’t mean they are the “best” investment of your time. When your priorities are clear, what fits and what doesn’t, is obvious and know when to say “no.”

6. Remember That Relationships Rule

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey writes: “You think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things.”

When relationships are a priority, it positively impacts how you interact others and what you prioritize.

7. Delegating Well

Accomplishing lofty goals takes more effort – it’s unlikely that you can do it alone. That’s why learning to hand off tasks well is such a potent skill! Learn more on how here.

Ideally, you want to be putting your energy into what you do best, what only you can do, and delegating the rest.

While my relaxed summer days were delightful in the past, continuing to live in a follow-my-nose-kind-of-way shrinks my effectiveness, keeps me from reaching my goals, and prevents me from walking in all that God created me to be.

The bottom line, successful people are pros at prioritizing. What would happen if you became a prioritizing pro?