We are professionals, parents, family members, children, friends, colleagues, associates and so much more. It is little wonder why we sometimes struggle to prioritise everything required of us.
How often do you start a task only to be distracted by the door, a phone call or one of the kids asking for the 7th snack of the day? If you work at home, in an office, as a full-time parent or carer, whatever your daily life brings, there are always distractions.
Of course, procrastination has a terrible habit of sneaking in, preventing us from starting tasks in the first place! Here are some top tips to prioritise tasks and get things done!
Make a list. I love my lists! The physical act of writing a list helps you to plan out what you need to do in the first place. Write down ALL of the things you need to do. Include both personal and business-related things. There are no rules here. Write down what you need to do for the day, week, month, or even the entire year if you want to.
Once you have your list, you can look at both short-term goals and long-term goals. What do you need to achieve them? ie short-term goal, could be scheduling your social media for the month. What do you need? Content and designs? What do you need to do to pull that all together? A long-term goal could be getting around to decorating the bathroom. What do you need to get there? Find a plumber? Decide on a colour scheme, buy wallpaper? Etc, you get the gist.
Break down your bigger goals into bite-sized chunks and schedule time to get those chunks done. For example; I get paid on Friday, therefore, I will go into town on Saturday and buy the wallpaper for the bathroom. Once you start chipping away at the big goals, they become much more manageable.
Give yourself deadlines and stick to them! Be strict with yourself too. Of course, you may still be thrown through a loop (life tends to do that to us) give yourself realistic, generous deadlines.
Map out what is urgent and important; do those tasks first.
Once you have done the most important tasks start doing the ones that you don’t particularly want to do. Putting off something only weighs you down. Once it is done, it is done, get it out of the way.
I find verbalising my list of priorities helps. I often have a chat with my other half about the things I need to get done and I include him (especially if it requires DIY!). I find that when I say it out loud, I am committing to getting it done because someone else knows and will know if I don’t do it! It also works with friends and colleagues.
Consider if a task needs to be done or if you would just like it to be done. If that is the case, it isn’t a high priority. Singling out these tasks will make your overall list a lot lighter.
Be kind to yourself. You are not a superhero and you are not expected to be able to do a million things at once. Reward yourself for a job well done and for ticking things off from your priority list.
Sampson VA Services are a Virtual Assistant Agency here to lighten the load. Should you need extra help with anything Admin, get in touch for a chat.