Prioritising is an important aspect of time manageent. Focus on urgent and important tasks rather than those that are not important or don’t move you towards your goals. Someone who works hard and is well organised but spends all their time on unimportant tasks may be efficient but not effective.
It’s important to list the tasks you have and to sort these in order of priority, and then to devote most time to the most important tasks. This avoids the natural tendency to concentrate on the simple, easy tasks and to allow too many interruptions to your work.
Source: How to manage your time effectively @ Kent University
Tools
- Prioritization Tools @ MindTools, including Paired Comparison Analysis, The Action Priority Matrix, and The Urgent/Important Matrix
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- Prioritization – Making best use of your time and resources @ MindTools
Excerpt: It is particularly important when time is limited and demands are seemingly unlimited. It helps you to allocate your time where it is most-needed and most wisely spent, freeing you and your team up from less important tasks that can be attended to later, or quietly dropped. With good prioritization (and careful management of deprioritized tasks) you can bring order to chaos, massively reduce stress, and move towards a successful conclusion. Without it, you’ll flounder around, drowning in competing demands.
- Time management @ NHS Choices
Excerpt: This first step towards improving your time management is to ask yourself some questions. “Work out who you want to be, your priorities in life, and what you want to achieve in your career or personal life,” says Donaldson-Feilder. “That is then the guiding principle for how you spend your time and how you manage it.” Once you have worked out the big picture, even if it’s quite general, you can then work out some short-term and medium-term goals. “Knowing your goals will help you plan better and focus on the things that will help you achieve those goals,” says Donaldson-Feilder.
