How to Start Prioritizing
You do many things during the day, in fact, you do even more things during the week or month. Things may pile up on your to-do list, or you may just have a very long list to begin with! This is normal and natural. We all have different responsibilities and tasks to we need to complete, like homework or chores. Being organized and prioritizing your tasks can help you stay on track!
Why You Should Prioritize
It can be easy to get overwhelmed when you have a lot of things to do. Imagine how it would feel if you left all your chores undone until the very end of the day, it would feel awful and daunting to even start them! However, this can be easily overcome by prioritizing your to-do list. Simply take a moment at the beginning of your day to sit down and write out all your tasks for the day, then order them in a way that makes it easy and manageable for you.
Different Ways of Prioritizing
We are all different, so people may have different ways of prioritizing their tasks. Some people order their lists by importance. This means they put the most important task on top and the least important task on the bottom. Others may prefer to order their lists by deadlines. They put the task that needs to be completed soonest on top, and the task that are due later on the bottom. Another way of prioritizing is by time. Prioritizing this way means the task that takes the longest or shortest amount of time is placed on top.
Each way of prioritizing has different advantages and disadvantages, so you should experiment with different methods and see what works best for you.
Prioritizing Throughout the Day
Making a to-do list is a great way of organizing your day and setting your priorities. It lets you take the time you need to think about your tasks and the way you would like to order them. However, sometimes you may not get the chance to prioritize in this way because your tasks are assigned to you suddenly, so you will need to think about it in the moment. If you are in the martial arts studio and it’s almost time to leave, your teacher may ask you to do many things. For example, they may say to clean up, help someone else with their martial arts forms, and get ready to leave.
In this example, it makes sense to place readying yourself at the bottom, because that is the last thing you will need to do. However, you may decide to place either cleaning up or helping your classmate on top, depending on how long each on will take or which is more important. As you can see, by prioritizing your tasks you can be better prepared to get everything done right on track. Prioritizing helps you stay focused and makes your tasks more manageable.
Don’t let yourself be overwhelmed again, prioritize and get to work!