Hello my dear subscribers. The first of September is the beginning of a new school year and for some the beginning of a new life. This happened to me 10 years ago. Today we are celebrating a pink wedding, but more on that in one of the following reviews. And while we talk about life...
Standing at a crossroads, most people begin to think about which path to take. Have you experienced this? At such moments, people are marking time in one place for a long time, because they cannot accept final decision. Knowing how to prioritize life and work in general will help to avoid this.
Understanding the Importance of Priorities
Remember the children's epic about Ilya Muromets, where the main character has to make a choice, being in front of a stone: “If you go to the right, you will lose your horse, to the left, you will lose your life ...”. Sometimes such a choice is faced by each person. Here are common examples: get up and do exercises to be alert or sleep longer, do work in the morning or leave it for the evening, and so on.
A competent approach and awareness of the importance of committing an act will help to cope with a bunch of impending problems. The choice of sequence should be based on the goal of the person and contribute to its approximation. Do you know why some people become successful, while others cannot get closer to their desires? It's all about misplaced priorities.
The main feature of the choice of prioritization technique is the emphasis of a person on his life positions. Imagine a single woman with children. Represented? So think about it what is important for her?
Naturally:
· Children's health, which is directly related to how babies eat and what they wear. If you walk barefoot in rainy weather, you can get sick the next day.
· Place of residence (a warm apartment, not a shed with a leaky roof).
· Understanding employer, ready to pay a decent salary and let go of the workplace if necessary.
The woman herself (unfortunately, for many mothers, their condition is the last priority).
In a woman's life, she should be the top priority. No wonder they say: "Put an oxygen mask on yourself first, and then on a neighbor, relative or child." The meaning of this phrase is that only by protecting yourself, you can save millions of lives.
It turns out that circumstances sometimes force us to make other decisions, therefore, everything is based on three “pillars”: importance, urgency and coincidence. Learn to work with them, and then you will become successful.
Ways to fix failures
In order to become happy, learn to cope with the tasks set and enjoy life, it is enough to adhere to the following tips:
1. Eradicate the definition problem life values. To do this, you need to conduct a self-analysis of the lived period, draw a map of desires and set goals that can fulfill your ideas.
It turns out that this is not difficult to do, you have to spend a little time. Think for yourself: what is important for an athlete? Naturally, victory, a medal, respect, therefore, his priorities are training, taking into account the comments of the coach, and not computer games and watching series. This is clear?
2. Use the principle of time management: "Difficult and important things to do in the morning." This rule allows you to take off the load responsibly, increase self-esteem and serves as a kind of motivation that allows you to "conquer the peaks."
What do you think is more important for successful person: read the news on social networks or have time to make a good deal? Naturally, the second, however, many people suffer from a problem called "sweat." These people say: “I still have time”, “I have a lot of time”, and in the end they begin to blame themselves for the failures and try to correct the situation at the last moment. Do you belong to this category?
3. Ranking of cases should be done in the following order:
- urgent and important;
- just urgent;
- especially important;
- important;
- secondary.
How to make this division of tasks? Quite simply: you need to look at them, analyze the scope of work and make an assessment. After that, it will become clear what things you need to do in the first place, because they do not tolerate delay (treatment of the disease, quarterly report, etc.). 
4. Don't be afraid to transfer responsibility. If you are the head of the department, then taking on all the problems is not the right solution. You have subordinates, features whose work you know, therefore, entrust knowing person create a program. So you will not only complete the task in the shortest possible time, but you will also be able to move a few more points of your plan (you will have time to complete a couple of things).
Value your time. If you don’t know how to save it, then feel free to study the material of Evgeny Popov’s training “Master of Time”. There you can find many useful information, and most importantly, you will understand that becoming successful is not so difficult.
5. Follow the schedule and then you can increase your personal productivity indicators, therefore, become successful.
Life priorities
It's no secret that for a person there are several priorities: family, health, work, hobbies, appearance, friends. Try to arrange them in decreasing order of importance. This way you can find the areas worth paying attention to. Special attention(first three).
Do not forget that priorities will constantly have to be reviewed, because their allocation depends on:
The age of the person. What does the child need? Toys, books, mom, dad. And what is important for a twenty-five-year-old man? Car, apartment, finances. Well, what about an old man? Health, rest.
· Circumstances. It is no secret that the appearance of a baby cardinally changes the life values of parents, and therefore their priorities. In addition, it is known that until a person has a problem, he does not begin to act in this direction. It's true.
People who have taken a loan begin to think about an additional source of income, try to save money and dream of throwing off this burden. What does the student think about before the session? Of course about education. You agree with me?
Setting priorities in life is sometimes not easy. If you cannot understand yourself or it is difficult for you to choose the area that is more important than the rest at this stage of life, then use the method of "Gleb Arkhangelsky's Memoir".
The essence of this method is to fix the daily important point. For someone, it will be associated with a healthy lifestyle (did exercises, took cold and hot shower), for others with family (a wonderful dinner surrounded by relatives, a walk in the park), etc.
The main rule of this method is to record the event that left the greatest impression for the whole day (even if it is negative). It is necessary to fix one's own feelings within a month, although a week is enough for someone.
Perhaps that's all I wanted to talk about the priorities and principles of their identification and placement. Do you have any questions? Rather, fix them on paper or leave them in the "Comments" section. I will gladly answer them.
Sincerely, Elena Izotova.
In the life of each of us constantly there is a mass of cases of various degrees of importance. What to do first, what to leave for later, and how to save precious time at the same time is a task that is akin to art. And to solve it, it is not necessary to study multi-volume time management manuals. It is enough to correctly set your priorities.
How is this done and what does it mean to “prioritize”? The literal translation of the word priority means "first". In other words, it is a priority task or action. Often there are several such tasks for the whole, and many are lost in how to complete all the important things and not lose sight of anything. In addition, there are more global goals from a number of life goals. Therefore, the second important question for many is how to prioritize life? In both of these cases, only a well-established scheme or technique can help. And, fortunately, there are.
Prioritization Methods
First of all, the ability to prioritize lies in the competent distribution of tasks in order of importance. And at this stage, many problems begin. At first glance, many tasks do not seem as important as they really are. Numerous ways of setting priorities are called upon to determine this degree. Let's consider the most effective of them.
1. Eisenhower principle. One of the most frequently used in the definition of primary and secondary tasks. To understand how to prioritize, create a questionnaire for yourself to learn how to separate the concepts of importance and urgency. For instance:
- you want to get back to work on the goal you set for the year. However, you cannot do this. Is it important or urgent?
- on the mailbox received several letters. Is it important or urgent to read them right now?
- You have decided that you will visit the doctor every six months. Exactly six months have passed, but you still haven’t gone to him. Is it important or urgent at the moment?
Correct answers:
- Important
- Urgently
- Important
This principle is based on a combination of only two possible options, which allows you to analyze and classify all upcoming tasks. Thus, you will get a hierarchy of tasks that will allow you to understand what needs to be done and when.
2. S. Covey quadrants. A method that allows you to understand how to prioritize work. According to the author of the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, all tasks of people can be conditionally divided into 4 parts:
- important and urgent
- Important but not urgent
- Not important but urgent
- Not important and not urgent
According to S. Covey, successful people focus on Quadrant 2 first, and this saves time on other tasks. However, everyone decides for himself which tasks are more important - from quadrant 1 or 2.
3. A similar principle of how to properly prioritize is in method "ABV". But the tasks in it are divided into 3 categories.
Hello friends! Let's talk again about priorities. Consider the placement features life priorities. concept "life priorities" closer to the field of psychology and philosophy than to time management. But they certainly have common ground.
Life priorities- a universal category that reflects the importance for a person of certain areas, or key areas, of his life. Why universal? Because the spheres of life are known and have the same meaning for many people.
The main areas of human life
There are 4 main areas: image, family, love, work. Spheres of life, they are supports, resources - sources of strength, energy. Such an understanding of the spheres of life gives a lot of advantages for the development and disclosure of all the possibilities inherent in a person. Developing this or that sphere of life, you can draw energy, inspiration, motivation for the development of other spheres in it.
- Family: personal relationships, children, relatives
- Work: profession, skills, colleagues, career
- Studies: professional education, self-development
- Hobbies/leisure: hobbies, interests, travel
- Health: healthy lifestyle life, health-improving methods and systems
- Friends/society: close friends, acquaintances, neighbors, associates
- Image: your external expression, your body, facial expressions, gait, style.
What influences prioritization in life?
Age. For young people, in descending order, the priority areas of life will be studies, careers, friends, family, hobbies, and health.
For older people, the sequence is likely to be: health, family, leisure, friends.
Some areas of life may disappear from view if they lose their meaning for a person.
Life events. For example, the birth of a child will certainly affect the lifestyle of new parents. For a mother during maternity leave, child care will be a priority, work and career will fade into the background.
Problems in any area of life. For example, while there are no problems, health for most people is not a priority area of life. As soon as health problems appear, this area of \u200b\u200blife becomes the main one. How much - depends on the nature and duration of the disease.
Problems at work will make it a priority for this period of time. It is the same with studying - the time of the session changes the priorities characteristic of the carefree student life “from session to session”.
As you can see, the spheres of life are mobile, dynamic system, in which events can occur that change the degree of importance of a particular area for specific person. It must be understood that such changes occur at a superficial level and are usually temporary. Thus, after the birth of a child, women with a high priority in the “work / career” sphere quickly return to work and continue their career growth.
The inner "core" of priorities, if properly defined, remains the same for a very long time.
How to prioritize life
The way you prioritize your life is different than the way you prioritize your work.
Many people do not think about this issue. For many of them, life is already developing successfully, they are satisfied and happy with everything. And it's great!
But even more people, not knowing, suffer from lack of realization, misunderstanding, psychological discomfort, experience anxiety and depression. Therefore, if you are thinking about what is important for you in life, it is very important to find the right answer.
Memoir. Main event of the day
The simplest and effective way described in his book "Time Drive: How to manage to live and work." And the method was invented by Vitaly Korolev, a member of the time management community.
The method of setting life priorities is as follows. Select a notebook or notebook in which you will write memoir. You can keep a memoir in a diary. For example, in each page there is a separate column for this.
Set aside a few minutes of quiet time each evening. Take a mental look at the past day: scroll through in your memory its main events, from morning to evening, work and events outside of work.
Define for yourself main event of the day. Do not specifically look for something global, some kind of achievement or result. The main event of the day may be a trip for a child in Kindergarten, contemplation of the sunset, a conversation with a neighbor in the stairwell ... Anything! How to understand that this event is the main one? It can be both positive and negative. Remembering it, you will definitely react: smile, breathe a sigh of relief, feel how your muscles relax and it becomes easier to breathe - if the event is positive. The event of the day with a negative connotation will be accompanied by sadness, regret, difficulty breathing.
Defined main event of the day? Now write next to the event the area to which this event belongs.
At the end of the week, from the main events of the day, select main event of the week. At the end of the month, also select main event of the month from the main events of the past weeks.
In a month you will see a clear picture of your life values - priority areas of life. The longer you keep a memoir, the more accurate the picture of your life priorities the easier it will be in the future to set the right goals and achieve them. And most importantly, these values and goals will be yours, native, not imposed from outside by society and its stereotypes. Find out what is truly important to you. Write in the comments what event was the most important for you today.
In one of the following articles, we will consider the features and methods of placement work priorities.
The Pareto Principle states that a small proportion of causes, inputs, or efforts are responsible for a large proportion of results, outputs, or rewards earned. A small proportion of causes causes the lion's share of consequences. Pareto is unambiguous: the maximum of what you want will be the result of the minimum of what you do. Some things are more important than others, and by a lot. I want you to keep this principle in mind when compiling a to-do list - first identify the 20% of the most important thing, then select another 20% of them and continue in the same vein until you get the single, most important thing. You can start with a list of any length, but with the mindset that you must clear your way to the one most important thing.
Focus
It always takes some time to start a new task and return to what you were doing before you were interrupted, and it is not certain that you will be able to continue exactly where you got distracted. Studies show that about 28% of work time is wasted due to multitasking. Multitaskers are more stressed, make more mistakes, and lose the ability to correctly estimate the time needed to work on a task - they almost always feel that it will take more time than it really is. Every time we try to do two or more things at the same time, we simply divide our attention and reduce the demands on the results of each of the processes.
Form habits
Contrary to popular belief, success is not the result of a marathon of disciplined action. In fact, success is a sprint in which discipline is needed exactly until the moment a habit is formed. By forcing yourself, you accustom yourself to a certain course of action, and from some point it develops into a habit. Resign yourself to the brutal discipline it will take just to make the new kind habitual behavior, and everything will be much different. On average, it takes 66 days to form a habit. Build skills one by one. Success comes in sequence, not all at once. No one manages to acquire more than one strong habit in one period of time.
Ask yourself the big question
To rank tasks according to their importance, ask yourself the Focusing Question: “What is the one thing I can do that makes everything else easier or unnecessary?” This leads to specifics - you can choose only one option. The words "can do" contain a built-in command to do what is possible. People often replace this with “should” and “would like,” but all of these options are incorrect. What you can do is always more important than good intentions. The "so that as a result of this" part talks about the criteria that the answer must meet. It is a bridge between simply doing and doing purposefully. The last part of the phrase is the final test of the strength of the impact. The point is that when you do this one thing, everything else on the way to your goal will become achievable at the cost of less effort or even unnecessary.
Link today to the future
The more distant in time the future reward, the less motivation to receive it - this phenomenon is called "hyperbolic discounting". It serves as an explanation for the fact that most people prefer $100 right now to twice as much in the future. Their "current distortion" outweighs logic. There is a simple way of thinking that will overcome this.
What is one thing I can do to make everything else easier or unnecessary?
You have to imagine how one small thing gradually grows into a big one. It's a bit like a nesting doll: your main "right now" item is inside your main item for today, which sits inside your main item for this week, and so on. Train your mind to link goals in time. Connect your today to all your tomorrows. So you learn to think big, but purposefully.
Plan important
Successful people start by planning their free time from work. Why? They know they need it. Everything needs pauses to function properly, and you are no exception. Once you've planned your rest time, start allocating a temporary block for your main thing. If possible, it should be at the very beginning of the day. Leave yourself an hour to deal with urgent morning tasks, and then get on with the main thing. I recommend one four-hour time block per day. You can do more - go ahead. The next step in allocating time blocks is planning itself. This is the time when you reflect on where you are now and where you want to go. Set aside one hour each week to review your yearly and monthly goals. Ask yourself what needs to happen this month and this week to keep you within your yearly goals.
Protect your time
It is not difficult to allocate time - it is difficult to defend. The best way- setting that these time blocks are immovable. Therefore, if someone tries to keep you busy during this time, just apologize, say that you are already busy, and offer another option in return. If this is really something urgent, remember the rule of "lost - replaced" and immediately reschedule your time block. If you feel that at the moment of work, side thoughts pop up in your head, just write them down and continue doing what you were doing. Find a place to work away from the paths that distracters travel. Keep all the supplies, snacks, and drinks you might need handy, and don't leave your "bunker" for any reason other than going to the bathroom. Turn off your phone, close email. Tell those who might be looking for you what you are doing and when you will be free.
Learn to refuse
To protect what you said “yes” to and stay productive, you should say “no” to everyone and everything that can undermine your efforts. No one knew how to say "no" better than Steve Jobs. Two years after his return to the company in 1997, the number of products in the Apple product line was reduced from 350 to 10. He explained this by saying: "Focusing means saying no." Every time you say “yes,” you pinch off a piece of the effectiveness of your efforts in all areas. So the more things you try to do, the less successful you are at each one. You can't please everyone, don't even try.
When you have too many daily tasks, then you are bound to face a problem. prioritization between these things. If you do not prioritize correctly, then this threatens you with the fact that you will mark time, performing those tasks in the first place that do not affect your future in any way.
Many people who do not know how to prioritize doing all sorts of nonsense, assuming that they perform important mission. Or they drown in a routine that does not allow them to launch some kind of global project, on which the fate of a person may depend.
There are many ways to prioritize, but my favorite is the following scheme. To do this, take a sheet of paper and divide it into four parts:
| 1) URGENT AND IMPORTANT | 2) IMPORTANT BUT NOT SO URGENT |
| … | … |
| 3) URGENT BUT NOT SO IMPORTANT | 4) NOT URGENT AND NOT IMPORTANT |
| … | … |
And now, based on your life goals, scatter all your current affairs on this table.
In the first section things are both important and urgent. It can be problems in relationships, urgent matters in your own business, important and urgent matters at work.
In the second section Compass in focus, clock less. Important things and values that affect our life, health, future.
In the third section things that are not important, but you can't do without them. Something that exists every day and distracts our time from the main thing.
In the fourth section something that distracts us from the main and necessary. Things that need to be reduced in time and spent on more important things.
Here's what my table looks like:
| 1) URGENT AND IMPORTANT | 2) IMPORTANT BUT NOT SO URGENT |
|
|
| 3) URGENT BUT NOT SO IMPORTANT | 4) NOT URGENT AND NOT IMPORTANT |
|
|
Based on the work done, it can be understood that most your time should be spent on first and second section of this table, and the second section of the time should take the most. These are the most important things in your life, on which the fulfillment of your most secret desires depends.
Some of you may say: "Well, how can you do without ICQ or social networks, because it's so cool, you can chat with friends, have fun, take a break from problems and worries?"
The point is not to completely give up what brings you pleasure, the point is to, with the help of effective planning of your time, distribute your affairs during the day in such a way that there is an opportunity to work well and relax well.
No need to go to extremes. It is more about the fact that you first need to create conditions for yourself to relax, and then in fully enjoy this holiday. Otherwise, we usually see people who are aching and dissatisfied with life, declaring injustice, who did not lift a finger to make their life better.
If you sit in classmates all day, then you don’t need to whine that you don’t have enough money to live. Earn your million dollars, and then sit as long as you want.
If you do not plan your future, then other people will do it for you, and very often not as you would like.
Most people wake up every morning and start their day with no clear idea of what they have to do for the day. They simply flow into the stream of life and they are carried to no one knows where in the general mass of people who have no goal, no plans and no future.
