Using Priority to Spend Your Time Wisely

Everyone is faced with decisions of what they should do first with their time. What goals do you want to achieve FIRST over other goals? What can wait?

The concept of priority can help to answer these questions.

Priority is a ranking system of what is most important. If you assign your tasks levels of priority, the task of number 1 priority is the one thing you have to do first. Items with low priority or no priority can be deferred to another time.

Understanding the concept of priority:

• Priority is important because it helps you start on your task list.
  • Setting priority of a task can put your mind at ease because it takes away the effort of deciding what to do with your time. The answer is simple: do the tasks that have the highest priority first.
  • Task lists can help you notice what needs to be done, but it is difficult to decide which tasks to do first. This is where priority comes in
• It is important to use a very limited and specific definition to determine priority. If you’re using too broad a criteria,
  • The easiest way to define priority tasks: urgency. That is, a task with the nearest deadline has the highest priority.
  • Urgency makes sense to use when determining priority because failing to complete a task on time usually has harsh consequences, which serve as a good motivation to get things done.
• The BEST way to define priority:
  • consider your goals and values for your life (5 years in the future, about)
  • use them to set an objective for the year
  • use that objective to define what you should work on for a month
  • then a week
  • then a day, all the way down to your next task.
  • This take a lot of time reflecting on what you want to do with your life, and you regularly have to review your monthly and weekly goals, but it really makes your work feel worthwhile.

If you’re still not able to set priority effectively, that’s ok, it takes some practice and patience. You can ask yourself some of these questions to try figure it out too:

• Is this task due tomorrow? Is it very important to my (grades, goals, etc.)?
• Will this task help my in my progress towards a project I’m working on? Is that project important right now?
• Will I feel EXTREMELY RELIEVED when this task is done? (If YES, you should do it!)