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Prioritising - the key to effective time management

Effective time management is often a major issue for many growing businesses but before you look for the answer in high tech computer programmes or efficiency experts, simply prioritising tasks can be the answer to time management problems.

You don't need to work faster but spend more time doing the "Right Things Right."

There are always too many things to do but prioritising is one way to solve this frustrating problem.

One key reason why prioritising works and works well, is the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule states that 80 percent of our typical activities contribute less than 20 percent to the value of our work. So it makes sense to try and concentrate on the top 20 percent of activities which produce 80 percent of the value. Sounds simple!

So how to go about effectively prioritising your work? It is all about making choices in what to do and what not to do. To prioritise effectively you need to be able to recognise activities which will produce a valued return, as well as see the difference between urgent low payoff tasks and urgent high payoff tasks.

At first glance, many of the tasks we face during a day seem equally urgent. Yet, if you take a closer look, you will see that many of the urgent activities we are involved in do not produce the value in the long run. At the same time, things that will have a high pay-off for us in our businesses, like improving ourselves and our skills, getting a better education, are often overlooked as low priority.

Listed below are some ideas and tools to help manage your time more effectively; thereby improving your performance as well as reducing the number of hours you spend in the office:

- Find a place free from distractions.
- Devote 30 minutes each day to setting and reviewing your priorities and goals.
- Review the prior days tasks for any unfinished activities.
- Write down the planned activities for the day.
- Review the activities planned over the next few days.
- Prioritise the activities according to what is, for example:

(A) Urgent and high pay-off (pressing problems such as the business finances; sales meeting with an important client etc).

(B) Not urgent but high pay-off (planning, training, staff etc).

(C) Urgent and low pay-off ( e.g. meetings, phone calls, email etc).

(D) Not urgent but low pay-off.

- Collate the tasks into "to do" lists under the headings above e.g. (A) Urgent/High Pay-off etc.
- Write alongside each the estimated time to complete.
- Focus 80% of your time on (A) and (B) activities.
- Minimise and/or eliminate the time spent on (C) and (D) activities or try and delegate these.

Planning and prioritising tasks should help the overall performance of your business as time is spent on the things that really make a difference to your bottom line. Remember ?speed of action? is an important attribute in any business as long as it is focused on doing the Right things Right.

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