Prioritizing properly is a must to avoid feeling frazzled. Frazzle kills your genius juju and we don’t want that cause the world needs your genius darling.
So I’m continuing my mission this week to help people sort out their priority puzzles. When it comes to doing BIG work in the world, especially if you are just starting out, everything can feel overwhelming.
Last week I blogged about the importance of having a well prioritized to-do list, one that is free of AVOIDANCE tasks. You know, the filler things you hide behind instead of tackling the BIG important things? If you missed it, catch up here.
Now that we’ve just put some BIG priorities on your list, you’re probably wondering when and how do you get them done? Which one first?
Well, I’d like to share some common mistakes I see people making in the hopes it will help you with that.
Mistake #1 – Plunking without plotting
Commonly, people carve up their day guided by “what” is on their to-do list, but rarely stop to think about how long each item on that list is likely to take. This means you have a “Hope to do” list, but you don’t really know how realistic it is.
Why does this mistake matter? It causes two problems:
- You make a plan you can’t stick to (ie. your structure breaks down)
- You give yourself crap for meeting your own unrealistic expectations (ie. your morale breaks down)
Mistake #2 – Overlooking the Learning
Commonly, people don’t give due respect to the learning time of doing something new. You’re shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t take this into account. Knowing what is totally new on your list (never done before) needs special treatment.
Keep in mind you may have ‘learn-by-doing’ tasks or ‘absorb-first-implement-later’ kind of tasks, either way build in additional time for these things.
Mistake #3 – Skipping the scales
Ok, this analogy may not make sense for everyone, but hopefully you catch on!
When I was a kid I hated practicing piano, most especially scales. I wanted to skip ahead and just play the damn pieces of music. But skipping the scale drills made it harder to play the pieces, so I didn’t do myself any favours.
My point?
There are probably a lot of repetitive tasks that are ‘hands-off’ tasks ONCE you have a system set up for them. But if you don’t take the time to set up the foundation, they always remain ‘hands-on’ tasks and suck up resources that could otherwise be transferred elsewhere.
I’m talking really basic stuff, like do you have a ‘Grab “N Go’ spreadsheet where you keep all the important, most used/accessed URLS of your business so it takes seconds to share them and not minutes of searching and calling up your own sites every time?
Case in point, here is The Bravery Lab link (and by the way have you joined the community yet?). This took me just seconds to grab.
Remember you’re not just expending time resources, you’re expending mental energy (prime focus energy) that is needed elsewhere like learning!
Take the hit in the short-term to set some things up and benefit in the long term.
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