In current world our days are filled with lots of tasks. And not only at work. In our personal life as well. It feels like never-ending pile. Once we finish one task we find at least one more new task. In this carrousel of doing it’s important to do the right thing.
You can complete dozens of tasks a day. But if they are just chores and reactions to emergencies, then you’re basically running in place. You have a lot of action and at the same time you have no progress. You’re busy spending your energy on the wrong things.
Take a close look at the tasks you’ve completed during last few weeks. Also ask yourself how you feel about your accomplishments during these weeks. If you see only chores and emergencies, covering tasks for other people, reacting to incoming requests, and you feel that you didn’t do anything really meaningful for you then ask yourself: Do I want to spend all my weeks like this? Then adjust. Stop being busy. Start being picky with your tasks.
Define what matters to you. Define your desired destination and a plan. Identify activities which are moving you forward. Then make them your priority.
I believe that you should go top to bottom:
- Define your areas of responsibility. These are parts of your life which are important through your life. Area could be as broad as “Kids” and as narrow as “Financial education of my kids”. Both will be important part of your life for years.
- Define your long-term and short-term goals. I tend to look at goals as milestones in my journey in area of responsibility. I don’t see why would I have a goal which is not related to any of my areas. In my opinion long-term goal is the one you expect to achieve in one or more years. Any goal below one year I consider short-term.
- Back up your areas and goals with projects. While areas and goals define what matters, projects define how you will achieve your destination. These projects and tasks in them will become your priority for the weeks.
- Cleanup all your existing tasks. Delete, delegate, defer ruthlessly. The idea is to leave nothing which doesn’t have a direct impact on your life or life of your close ones.
- Gather other projects. Now comes life maintenance stuff. Things like payments, household, car maintenance, emergencies, etc. are not going anywhere from our lives. These are operational things. It’s important is to differentiate them from strategic actions (which lead to goals).
- Start planning your weeks based on your areas of responsibility and goals. Plan specific tasks from your strategic projects into the week. Plan a time to work on them. Act on them. And bit by bit your goals will come true.
At this point it’s vital to have your weekly plannings. They will navigate you and make sure you’re not falling back into trap of being busy without progress.
In two or three month asses your accomplishments and your feelings. I bet you will feel very different compared to the time you feel before implementing this approach.