Prioritizing takes careful thinking and thinking takes time. When our schedule becomes loaded with deadlines, it’s natural to want to keep chugging along. But if we don’t stop to ask ourselves whether we’re focusing on the right things, we may not be serving our organization or ourselves.

We can become so focused on catching up with our workload, we can forget the starting point for every single day. Stephen Covey said, “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”

Scheduling priorities is on ongoing activity that takes effort and focus. Here are seven proven tips to help keep you on track:

1. Go over your priorities at the start of each day. Strong leaders understand how important this is. That’s what keeps them both focused and calm. Before they do anything else, they turn their attention to what is most important and they carry that confidence throughout the day.

2. Concentrate on things only you can do. None of us have time to take care of everything that crosses our desk. What is more, there may be someone else better suited to the task. If you delegate things that can be done by others, you can concentrate of the unique skills and talents you bring to the organization.

3. Do what brings the most value to the organization. In “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”, John C. Maxwell teaches the Pareto Principle. It’s a handy way to check your priorities. The idea is simple. Focus your activities on the 20 percent that is most important and you will get an 80 percent return on your effort. 

4. Make the most of your areas of strength. We all have passions. These are the things we enjoy doing and do well. They are the best parts of ourselves that we can offer to the world. It only makes sense to rank these as priorities. 

5. Say no to activities that do not align with your priorities. An essential part of prioritizing is the ability to say no. When you’re clear about what adds value and the strengths you bring to the organization, it is easy to see when something does not align with your priorities.

6. Share your priorities with the team on a regular basis. We are all part of teams and whatever priorities we set affect others. Make a point of regularly sharing your priorities with the team and encourage them to share theirs. Work together for higher goals.

7. Track how you use your time. We all have goals and we think we’re working according to our priorities, but the only way to be sure is to keep track of how you use your time. Sometimes this points to areas where you may want to spend more time. Other times it points to areas where you need to back off.

As you can see, setting priorities is a cycle that repeats itself every day. You can think of it as vision in action. It’s where what we hope to achieve falls into our hands and we are responsible for getting the work done.

As leaders, our job is to think ahead, know what’s important, and see how everything relates to the overall vision. John C. Maxwell calls this The Law of Priorities. You can learn more by reading that chapter in “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”.

The best is yet to come. It starts with you.

Your friends,
The UpCloseTeam