What Will You Prioritize? 3 Steps That Will Help You Know What To Focus On

What Will You Prioritize? 3 Steps That Will Help You Know What To Focus On

What will you prioritize??

How you answer this question will guide your life.?

Last week ?I shared an experience I had when working with a group of senior business leaders. I was surprised to learn only a handful had taken the time to list their priorities that day.??

Taking time to reflect is the first step in identifying your priorities. But during this reflection, how do you determine what you should and shouldn’t focus on?

The great and unfortunate reality of life is there are vastly more things expected of us, asked of us, and hoped for by us than we can possibly do with our limited time and resources.?

It is tempting to prioritize everything. But when we do this, we end up having no priorities. Instead, we find ourselves prioritizing whatever is in front of us.

This undisciplined approach leads to our priorities being set by default.?The antidote, of course, is to set your priorities by design.?

Here are three steps (and the questions to ask) that can help you when you are trying to prioritize. They work when applied to your business, your career, or your family:

  1. Realize I can’t do everything. (What’s Important to me?)
  2. Focus on areas where I can do the most good. (Where will my effort be best spent?)?
  3. List possible actions I can take that will make a difference. (What can I do?)

When we focus on just a few important things, our effort makes a bigger difference and is more meaningful.?

Prioritize What Matters

  • Make a list of things that are important to you.
  • Highlight priorities where your effort will make the biggest difference. Cross out the rest.
  • Choose one action to take today that will support one of these priorities.

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” -?Viktor Frankl

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Albert Reyes

Senior Structural Engineer at AR Construction

2 年

It is true that when we don't evaluate ourselves form time to time, we have the tendency to prioritize whatever is in front of us. We tend to forget what really matters and what to focus on. It is tempting to prioritize everything that's why we must take time to reflect and identify our priorities.

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Rena Calip

Divisional Manager | Supplying Virtual Assistants to Businesses

2 年

Insightful article, Greg McKeown. Everyone should check this out!

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Dr. Salima Shamji

Empowering successful executives to lead with intention, resilience, and impact through complex challenges. Physician | Leadership & Resilience Coach (Marshall Goldsmith SCC, ICF-ACC) | Mindfulness Teacher|Speaker

2 年

This is my favourite quote of yours! It’s hanging up in my office. I like to practice asking myself what 3 things, if I accomplished today, would make a big dent or leave me feeling like I had accomplished something in the day. Then I prioritize those. I like your idea of what’s one action step you can take towards your priority. It makes the task more manageable and you’re more likely to take action.

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Danielle (Dani) Choi, MS, ACC

Professional Coach, Consultant, Educator, Facilitator | Help you manage time & life in a meaningful way

2 年

What you say is so true Greg McKeown - "When we focus on just a few important things, our effort makes a bigger difference and is more meaningful." I definitely encourage the idea of minimizing the urgent things and maximizing the important ones. We only have so much time and energy to give!

Priority is a very common word we hear from time management specialists, but i think they forget that we′re connected: one can not deal with his/her own priorities alone, but with all those′s surrounding us: family, coworkers, all the others. Living is full of intricacies, not a straight line.

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