Determining What Matters Most
Maximize time management by knowing what’s most important
One of the key things that time management experts talk about is that in order to optimize your time and productivity you have to decide what matters most. Is a project important or unimportant? What tasks will ‘move the needle’? While taking notes during a time management webinar last week, I found myself struggling to describe the most important tasks on my to-do list. It got me thinking about how we determine our values and priorities.
I think there are a few different ways that you can think about determining your priorities. You might consider what tasks or projects have the greatest return on investment. Where can you spend your time to maximize the financial returns for your efforts? But money isn’t everything, so you might also think about what will make you feel personally fulfilled. Further, are there tasks that are closely tied to your values? Finally, while it’s great to be lazar-focused on what is best for you, you will likely always have some deadlines and priorities set by external forces, such as your family, your supervisor, or a client.
Taking all those factors into account I want to walk you through an exercise to think about what matters most and how to prioritize your time. Once you decide what’s important, there are many different strategies that you can take to start managing your time more effectively. First, let’s talk about how to decide what those most important things are to begin with.
Alignment with Values
When was the last time you wrote down your values? Earlier this year I went through an exercise of determining the values of my ‘brand’. Because my company is me and I am my company, my professional brand is pretty dang similar to my personal brand, so my values transect all aspects of my life. Personally, I value independence, home and family, impact, and mentorship. When I look across my job, home life, and hobbies, I can see that these values shine through. I can also see that I get quickly exhausted when I am prioritizing tasks that don’t align with my values.
What are your values? What energizes you? How can you make time every day to focus on tasks that align with your values?
Return on Investment
It’s not all about money, but if you’re anything like me, you can’t completely ignore financial implications of where you spend your time. I offer a lot of different services and I’ve been working to niche down. Some of the services I offer, like teaching new classes or working with students, don’t have the greatest return on investment for my time right now (i.e., I spend a lot of time on these activities, but don’t get paid too much). I offer other services that have a much higher return on the investment of my time and I’d love to continue optimizing my offerings so that I eventually have passive income as well. Ultimately, I run this business to provide for my family so I don’t just want to be trading my time for money. I want to be figuring out how I can spend my time most affectively to get the greatest return on investment for my family while staying true to my values and the things that I want to be doing with my consulting business.
Have you done a time audit lately? Have you calculated your return on investment for various tasks? How can you be investing your time now to get a better return on activities in the future?
Personal Fulfillment
When determining what’s important to you, consider what makes you feel personally fulfilled. I offer some services at much lower rates for certain clients because I want to make sure that young professionals have access to resources to launch their careers. I feel personally fulfilled when I’m able to help students navigate career choices even though it’s not a great immediate return on investment for me. I value mentorship, so working with students aligns with my values, but I also prioritize other small daily tasks. For instance, before I go to bed or dive back into evening work, I prioritize doing a language-learning lesson on Duolingo. It doesn’t mean much and I’m probably not going to be speaking Italian to someone in the near future, but it leaves me feeling personally fulfilled knowing that I have the ability to speak a little bit of another language.
What do you do for fun? Does taking time for the fun tasks help you feel refreshed? Can you find time to work on things that leave you feeling personally fulfilled?
External Demands
I would love to say that I only do things that are personally important to me but I also know that I have to be responsive to other peoples priorities as well. Clients may have deadlines pop up that need to be met. I have to work on things further in advance than I might otherwise when I’m reporting to my supervisor. My family might have unexpected needs. Every day, tasks come up that I may not think are important, but that need to be addressed because they are either my responsibilities or they’re the priorities of people that I love and care about. Inevitably, some of the most important things in your schedule are going to be driven by those people around you and so you might have to think about what their needs are and what is important to them as well.
Who else will you allow to drive your priorities? What are the most important tasks to them? How can you make time for external demands while prioritizing what matters most to you?
Conclusions
Productivity and time management is not just about getting things checked off your list. In order to maximize your time, you need to prioritize what matters most. Once you determine the most important tasks and your top priorities, there are several different methods for structuring your day around those tasks.
For instance, you might try to ‘eat the frog’ first thing in the morning — accomplish your most important task before you check your email or start meetings for the day. You can also set aside time each day to work on your important, but not urgent tasks to keep moving the needle.
Whatever approach you take, keep what’s important in mind and regularly check in on where you’re spending your time to make sure you’re doing what matters most.