How to prioritise, when everything feels a priority
What does a frog, a tomato, a piece of chocolate, and a battery have in common?
It’s not obvious I admit, but they are in fact all tools to help you plan, prioritise, and manage your time to achieve success.
Let’s take a closer look at these four techniques:
The frog.
“If it’s your job to eat a frog; its best to do it in the morning. And if it’s to eat two frogs; it’s best to eat the biggest one first” - Mark Twain.
This analogy explains what to do when faced with tasks that you’d rather put off. Brian Tracy, a leading authority on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness, picked up on Mark Twain’s genius tip and uses it throughout his book, ‘Eat That Frog’.
The point of the quote, and Tracy’s book, is to start your day by tackling the hardest task first.
Even if that’s all you get done that day, you’ll still have accomplished a lot!
It’s also a technique to make us more productive for the rest of the day. Imagine ploughing through your work, but in the background your mind is constantly thinking about that unpleasant task that you’re yet to do. You’re not going to be at your best are you?
But it has a much deeper meaning. And that is to make the best out of every day. It encourages us to figure out when we are most productive. For most of us, it’s in the morning before energy levels start to dip. But this isn’t the same for everyone – I know some successful business owners who are real night owls and gain their inspiration late on in the evening.
So, work out when your energy levels peak and when you’re most productive. This is YOUR time to eat that frog.
2. The Tomato
A lot of people pride themselves on being great multitaskers although research shows that very few of us are actually good at it.
Our brains can’t fully focus on multiple things at once and do them well. Productivity suffers.
The pomodoro (Italian for tomato) technique is all about grouping similar tasks together and placing a time limit on them – 25 minutes to be precise if you follow the technique to the letter. This promotes focus on one task at a time up to completion. It’s a great way to limit distractions and reduce interruptions to fully focus on the task in hand.
3. The piece of chocolate.
It’s true, our brains are actually programmed to procrastinate! No wonder we sometimes struggle with completing tasks. Our brains are on the look-out for that instant reward with minimal effort. It's what behavioural scientists call “present bias”.
To overcome this, and to trick our brains, we need to make the benefit of the action feel bigger, and the costs of the action feel smaller. In other words, the reward needs to be greater than the pain!
To make the benefits of an action feel bigger and more real, visualise how great it will be to get it done and link the first step to a treat – hence the piece of chocolate!
4. The battery
An effective way to boost your productivity is to manage your energy, not time.
To do this, you need to be aware of your 3 batteries:
Emotional
Physical
Mental
You much check in with all three batteries regularly. Be mindful that if one of your batteries is low, then the other two will suffer too.
On days, or even weeks, when your batteries are full you’ll be at your optimum, you’ll have time to tackle that complex report! On days when your batteries need topping up, it’s best to stick to the filing and spend the rest of your time recharging!
Keep your batteries at peak levels by breaking frequently. One study suggest you should work for 52 minutes and break for 17 for optimum results. Try it or discover your own perfect rhythm.
Consider an accountability buddy
Whilst all of these simple techniques are easy to put into practice, almost everything is easier when you’ve got the support of another. On our own it’s hard to be self-disciplined and easy to get distracted and dissuaded.
Identify someone who would be an amazing accountability buddy. It could be someone you used to work with who is more of a critical friend than someone you’d go out for drinks with. Or even someone like me, who is experienced at holding people to account, focused, and on track.
Finally, I have some effective tools and techniques to help you master these steps and free your path ahead so you can proceed to succeed! To learn more about them feel free to get in touch and book in a free discovery call.
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