Organizing Priorities
If you had to think of one thing to prioritize in life do you know what it would be?
It is hard to think of one priority because there are so many things we need to prioritize these days. There are the big picture priorities - the things we want to prioritize over a lifetime. Then there are the priorities we may have in a year, a week, or even in a day. Organizing our priorities is no small feat.
In my multiple years of teaching adults, I would generally start a class cycle by talking about long-term goals and aspirations. Within that conversation I would also talk about values. The reason being, we couldn’t totally identify the goals we wanted to reach without knowing what we truly valued.
Overwhelmingly my students - many of whom were over the age of 50, had fled war-torn countries, had two and three jobs and families to support - would tell me that they valued their health and well-being. No matter what, they would tell me that nothing was possible without having good health.
It was as simple as that!
I haven’t done any formal social research, but in all the years of teaching, I have come to realize that no matter what is going on or how much we want to accomplish, we really can’t move forward without prioritizing our most basic needs. Being healthy happens to be one of those needs.
With that said, I like to think that organizing our priorities - even on a daily basis - has to stem from somewhere. That somewhere is our overarching mission and our values (principles, beliefs, etc.).
Ideally, what we spend our time doing should largely be connected to our mission and values.
Whether we are talking about time being spent on individual or personal priorities or time being spent working for an employer’s mission, goals and aspirations are driven by a larger mission. In order to work towards goals, we must go through a series of steps which can be broken down even further into individual tasks or activities.
How do we prioritize those tasks?
We can start by making a list. Then, we can categorize that list into tasks or activities that are urgent, important, not urgent and not important. One task management tool used to organize priorities is the Eisenhower Matrix or Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix.
We know the things that are urgent - they have deadlines, they need to be done immediately, or there is an emergency situation at hand. The fact is, many people are, as Stephen Covey states in his book First Things First, “addicted to urgency” because it makes them feel accomplished. This is great in the short-term, but it doesn’t ultimately allow us to make time for what is truly important - in relation to our mission and values.
For example, if staying healthy is important to us, we may need to prioritize taking a walk each day. While other things may need to get done, the way in which they get accomplished - when, and how we prioritize our tasks - may influence whether or not we have the time to get a walk in during the day.
Ideally, the more we plan in advance and think of how our time is being spent based on achieving our mission, the more we can avoid urgencies so we can focus on what is really important to us.
What are your thoughts about organizing priorities? Email me at dani@danichoicoaching.com. I would love to hear from you!
I empower mission-driven individuals to organize their priorities and create schedules based on their individual needs and values. Click here to learn more about my services.
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