How to prioritize work in 2022?

Anyone who has ever tried to manage a demanding workload knows that prioritize work is essential for task management bests. When there are too many tasks competing for attention, it can be difficult to know where to start. Productivity masters advise to take the time to prioritize work and focus on the most important tasks and get them done more efficiently. One way to prioritize work is to create a list of all the tasks that need to be completed. Then, rank them in order of importance. Another way to prioritize work is to keep a calendar and schedule each task for a specific day and time. By blocking out time for each task, it is possible to ensure that all the most important tasks are completed in a timely manner. By taking the time to prioritize work and using must-have task management tools, it is possible to get more done in less time and achieve better task management bests.

Write down all the tasks to prioritize work

You cannot start to plan the work if it is not clear what is to be done exactly. For this reason, the first step of efficient prioritizing is the creation of a scrupulous "to-do" list. It does not matter whether you use a normal paper sheet and a calendar or the accomplishments of new technologies, i.e. an application, the most important thing is not to keep stuff in your head. Writing down all the tasks does not take longer than a dozen or so minutes, and, thanks to this, it will be easier to arrange the thoughts in order and assess which task should go first.

Assess the importance

Contrary to what you might expect, a deadline is not always the most important criterion when setting priorities. In a pinch, it's useful to remember that, as productivity masters and time management experts have long known, 20% of our efforts can yield up to 80% of the results. Therefore, it is of key importance to distinguish the tasks that are the most significant. How to do this? Questions like these might be helpful: what will bring the most value to the company? Does the performance of this task get us any nearer to the place we would like to be in a year? Which actions have the largest impact on the achievement of the purpose of the project and the client's satisfaction? Even the hardest work will not have any appreciable impact if it concerns matters of little importance.

Delegate tasks

If you are the team leader, consider which tasks might be handed over to your employees. The majority of bosses, especially in small companies, tend to try to kill too many birds with one stone. Such an approach usually leads to ineffective work, in an improper sequence, and makes the most important, long-term goals get out of sight. Meanwhile, depending on the type of tasks, even one-third of the checklist points may be successfully carried out by someone else. Delegating is not only a source of motivation for the employees but also a sign that we trust them.

Be flexible

The only permanent thing in life is... change. The same applies to priorities. Breakdown at the customer, new information, change of circumstances, or suffered failure — these are only a handful of situations that may be the cause of changes in the importance hierarchy. This is why it is important to keep the score in mind, regularly verify the priorities, and be ready to modify the priority list. It is also worthwhile to be prepared for a situation when we will be forced to abandon some tasks. It may turn out that something that has been sitting on the checklist for weeks is, in fact, not that urgent or important, and the best solution is to abandon it entirely.

Setting priorities resembles the selection of injured soldiers on the battlefield and dividing them into those who may be saved with immediate aid and those who will not make it. It cannot be done without cold calculation. However, it is useful to know how to prioritize work because the lack of it is the most frequent reason we fail in carrying out our goals.