Have you ever felt bad because you set out to complete a certain task but when you went to bed in the evening you realised that you hadn't managed it again and distracted yourself from the task that was actually important with lots of other tasks? Everyone has those days where you simply feel so much resistance to a certain task that unfortunately the task is still waiting to be done the next day. In this blog post, you will learn methods and techniques that you can implement in your life to get your tasks done better, easier and, above all, faster.
Oldschool - Calendar
If you have never consciously set priorities, you have probably been planning with a calendar until now. Most people nowadays have a calendar online and/or offline where they enter their appointments and in the meantime, when nothing is on the agenda, they simply do whatever comes to mind. Preparing for a meeting, making the next coffee, a quick phone call, saying hello to a colleague.
They use a calendar to ensure a clear structure in their working day. But is there a more efficient way to complete tasks? Yes. With prioritisation.
Setting priorities provides orientation
Prioritising allows you to have an idea of which tasks will be completed. If you only rely on your more or less precise time management, it can quickly happen that you are pressed for time and are then disappointed when you have only managed to complete two tasks after the scheduled time for five tasks. This is demotivating and of course not ideal.
Here are three techniques on how you can start prioritising.
With the help of to-do lists, the Ivy Lee method and the ABC analysis.
To-do list
The classic alternative to a precise schedule where you divide the tasks into time blocks is the simple list creation. With a to-do list, you know which tasks are all due and can tick them off one by one, giving you a sense of achievement when you can mark a task as completed.
A more advanced version of the to-do list is the following technique.
Ivy Lee - The Master Productivity Consultant
The Ivy-Lee method was invented by a consultant to Charles M. Schwab, who was one of the richest people in the world in the early 20th century. Schwab invited Ivy Lee to a meeting and asked him how he could increase productivity in his company, Bethlehem Steel Corporation. Ivy Lee was a recognised businessman and productivity consultant and told Schwab that he only needed 15 minutes with his executives. Ivy Lee did not want any direct money for his advice. He said he only wanted something if his technology worked, so Schwab could write him a cheque after 3 months for an amount he deemed appropriate.
All Ivy Lee discussed with each senior employee are the following 5 points:
1. at the end of the working day, they should write the maximum of 6 most important tasks for the next day on a piece of paper.
2. then the tasks should be arranged in the correct order of importance.
3. step three is for the following working day and involves focussing only on the most important task and completing it. Nothing else should be started until the number one on the list has been completed.
4. as soon as the most important task is done, you should move on to the next task, i.e. the two most important tasks, and do nothing else until it is finished, just like the first one. You should do this until either all the tasks are done or, if you don't get them all done that day, you should put them on the list for the next day and prioritise all the tasks for the next working day as in steps 1 and 2.
5 The last step is to repeat this technique every working day.
After three months, Charles M. Schwab was so pleased with the improvement in productivity at his company that he wrote Ivy Lee a cheque for 25,000$. This 25,000$ in 1918 is equivalent to 400,000$ in 2015.
Why is the Ivy Lee method so valuable? There are several reasons for this, firstly it is simple and can therefore be implemented quickly without having to understand any complex theories about productivity and secondly the method forces you to make difficult decisions, namely which six tasks are most important? This sounds easier said than done, but once these decisions have been made, you know exactly what to do. Namely number one. Then number two. Number three and so on until task six or until the working day is almost over.
The Ivy Lee method also prevents you from multitasking. Studies have repeatedly confirmed that multitasking requires more energy because you have to constantly refocus, whereas with singletasking, i.e. when you only do one task at a time, you focus strongly on the task and therefore have a higher level of performance. In the age of almost infinite information and stimuli on the internet, attention spans have drastically decreased and this simple but effective method could be a saviour for many people who are unable to focus.
This shows that prioritising has been a very productive way of managing the working day for over 100 years.
So it is definitely worth using this technique.
ABC Analysis
For people who don't like to categorise things according to a number scheme, as it is intended in the Ivy Lee method, the ABC analysis can be just the right thing. Here, tasks are analysed according to two things.
According to importance and urgency.
The diagram below shows what should be done with the important and urgent tasks and with the non-important and non-urgent tasks.
A: Is the task important and urgent? Then it's best to do it straight away.
B: Is the task important but not urgent? Then the ABC analysis advises you to schedule the task for a later date so that you can concentrate on the A tasks first.
C: Is the task urgent but not important? Then it's best to delegate it,
D: If the task is neither important nor urgent, you can eliminate it, as it is better not to waste your time on unnecessary or superfluous tasks, especially if there are still unfinished A, B or C tasks.
Congratulations. Now nothing stands in your way of becoming a more productive and organised person. If you would like to know more about Suuber to find out more about our products and services, please visit our website or follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook.
