“Get your priorities in order.” “Set your priorities straight.” “Perform your tasks in order of priority.” How often have you heard these statements thrown around? Do you understand what they really mean?
There is no doubt that prioritizing your objectives is important – it helps you get things done with much less frustration and in the time frame you desire. It’s a sure bet that you’ll stay more organized when you set priorities. The problem is that many people don’t really understand what it means to prioritize. It isn’t as simple as making the most urgent thing in your life the #1 priority; this is what many, if not most, people do.
Working in Corporate America, I’ve seen so many organizations, divisions and teams run a muck in the area of setting priorities and executing them. More often than not, they commit the mistake of making the most pressing task the #1 priority; sometimes, this is the right decision but often times it is not because the root cause of that pressing task is never addressed thereby causing a repeated cycle of addressing the symptom of the urgency.
Smart doctors will tell you that, you can always treat symptoms; however until you address the root cause of your ailment, you will most probably succumb to it over and over again (i.e. the common cold).
Think of it this way: A man goes to the doctor and complains of a migraine; the doctor prescribes a pill and the man feels better for a while. The next week, he comes in again with the same problem so the doctor prescribes another pill and again he feels better only to come back the following week with the same complaint. On his third visit, the doctor finally asks the man, “When do you begin to suffer these migraines?” The man replies, “Every time I think about my ex-wife” to which the doctor replied, “Sir, if you really want to cure your migraines for good, stop thinking about your ex-wife.”
Yes, I am over-simplifying for a reason – I want to make it clear that addressing symptoms never work; they are only temporary fixes and therefore not important priorities. They may be urgent for instant relief but not most important for complete relief. To cure any ailment for good, you must address the cause.
Why do I use this analogy? It’s because executing priorities require the same mindset. Before you simply make the most urgent thing in your life your #1 priority, first ponder why it is urgent in the first place. There’s a good chance that at the root of it, you’ll find a cause you can address to make this urgency go away permanently. I find that most urgent matters, with the exception of life and death, are not as important as we are conditioned to believe they are. More often than not, these matters are only urgent because of the failure to prioritize and plan effectively.
The fact is that not everything that is urgent is necessarily important and this is where many individuals go off track. For instance, you may be at home feeding your child who just got up from a long nap and in the middle of that, the telephone rings. The impulse is to answer the telephone simply because it’s ringing; the ringing makes it urgent but is it really more important than feeding your hungry child? Of course it’s not. The thing is though that many people would pause the feeding and answer the telephone which is a natural impulse that comes from our conditioning.
It still befuddles me how often I am in a meeting where the person I am meeting with continuously answers the telephone each time it rings. This is because it seems urgent, BUT, is it necessarily important – could it have waited? Of course it could have. There’s a good reason voice mail was invented.
The first rule of thumb then is to list your priorities in order of importance, not urgency. There is a clear difference between the two so think about it before you prioritize. The order of importance can take many forms and contexts.
For instance, in your personal life, you might list your priorities in the order of what is most important to you. At work, you may list your priorities in order of what is most important to your organization and its mission. I realize that you may not always have the luxury to do this freely at your workplace so just do the best you can.
The point is that feeding your child is always more important than answering the telephone unless you are expecting a phone call that is a matter of life and death. This of course does not mean that you never deal with urgent, yet unimportant matters before you deal with the important ones. There are times when we must do that; however, if you are aware that this is the case then chances are this urgency won’t become a repetitive cycle for you because you know that the more important priority is to address the root cause.
In many organizations and in the lives of individuals, the goal is to set priorities and then execute them one by one in that order. This approach, as illustrated in the preceding paragraphs, creates a major roadblock to getting things done. This is because your #1 priority is not always the task that gets done first; it is simply the most important of all the objectives you’ve set to achieve.
Here’s what I mean. Let’s say you have 3 objectives on your priority list for the week and you list them in order of the most important to the least important. Your list might look like this.
Now, review this list and think about these items for a minute. Just looking at the priorities as they are which seems more important to you? Let’s look at it through a simple scenario.
Let’s say that Yoga and Meditation Class is what gets you psychologically ready for a grueling week at work; it prepares you to meet whatever challenges come head on and without fear. From your experience you know you always produce significantly better results when you make it a point to attend these classes.
Now let’s say that your boss calls you Sunday afternoon and says, “We’d like to get started early on the Business Planning Session Presentation and we’re calling a meeting for 8:00 AM Monday morning – can you make it?” What would you say? I know that the automatic impulse of most people is to skip the class and go in early. Think about it though… are you really doing your organization any good? Wouldn’t you be more productive if you went to your class and simply arrived a bit later to the meeting? Sure, it’s not easy to say no to the boss; however, if you’re going to do what’s best for your organization, the choice is pretty clear to me.
Simply tell your boss that due to a prior and most important appointment, you won’t be able to make it at 8:00; however, you understand that this is important and you will be there as soon as you possibly can. He may not like it but certainly he will respect your honesty and your courage. Of course, you know the climate within your organization better than I, so make your own call.
Let’s go a step further and say that you and your team have been trying to hammer out the Business Planning Presentation but it’s been a frustrating road because there is no clear process in place. Let’s also say that the Business Planning Process Meeting has been on the calendar for weeks and has gotten pushed back a few times. Now, with the looming deadline of the presentation, the team is asked (or ordered) to push back the processes meeting to make more time for hammering out the presentation.
What do you do? In some cases, I realize that the call won’t rest solely with you and you’ll simply comply with the request. If you did have some influence though, what might you do? Sure the presentation is important but it’s also clear that the frustration, the root cause impeding the completion of the presentation is the lack of a process. Since that is the case, that means that while the presentation is the most urgent, it is certainly not more important than creating the process by which it is executed. Once a process is in place, the frustration of creating the presentation goes away.
Ok, I know that was quite the long way around but I wanted to make a point. With this scenario in mind, it stands to reason that executing in order of priority doesn’t always work. It is better to set priorities and execute around them keeping in mind what is most important. In other words, even if you chose to push the processes meeting back again, you would be aware that the process must be established before you create the next presentation lest you repeat the same cycle. This is the definition of insanity – to continue doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.
Priority Paralysis
Priority Paralysis is what happens when the most urgent thing automatically becomes the top priority. In essence, your exercise of prioritizing goes out the window because the most important priorities are constantly subordinated to the next urgent thing. It is easy to get caught up in the “activity trap” only to find that you’ve accomplished nothing that to set out to.
To avoid Priority Paralysis, you must list your priorities in the order of importance and then execute around them no matter what. If you find that you consistently repeat the same cycle of urgency with particular tasks, pause and review and then address the root cause – this is more important.
I realize that in some cases it will be harder to do this – if you have a very demanding job where the status quo is king, it may be near impossible; still, if you want to achieve at a high level, you must list your priorities in order of importance and then execute around them. Make sure that the most important objectives are not repeatedly subordinated to urgent and less important ones.
Priority Power
Priority Power is what happens when you set clear priorities in order of importance and then execute around them. This is when you understand that even though the most important task is not the first to be completed, that you are aware that completing it is top priority.
To develop Priority Power, practice to address problems at the root cause; endeavor to forego the ringing telephone and feed the baby. Know when to say no to an urgent request that is not as important as the priorities you’ve set. The more you practice, the easier it will become especially after you’ve experienced the profound and positive results you will undoubtedly achieve.
It may seem daunting at first to operate in this fashion but I promise you that if you put Priority Power into practice, you will see immediate and positive differences in your life, both personally and professionally. List your priorities in order of importance and then execute around them.
Where to Begin
I understand that this could be quite a circuitous road, especially if you’ve never tried this before. That noted here’s a brief outline of where you can begin your thought process in developing Priority Power.
Firstly, you may want to start by thinking from a macro frame of mind and decipher the priorities of your life. The reason for this is that, you will achieve greater success if your other priorities are closely aligned with your life’s priorities. The more closely aligned they are, the greater your chances of high-level success.
Once you’re comfortable with the priorities you’ve set for your life, you can begin to drill down from there into, career, volunteering, faith, softball coaching and so on.
Hey Dean, what about if I’m in a job where I don’t get to influence many decisions; what if for the most part people just do as directed? This will undoubtedly happen in some cases; however, you are not without a choice. You can still choose to prioritize what’s most important for you to achieve in that job.
For instance, perhaps you continue to execute as everyone else does the urgent but unimportant matters; however, your top priority may be to convince the senior management staff that there is a better more efficient way to do things. If you’re committed, I’m sure you can achieve the results you desire.
In the worst case scenario (or best case depending on how you look at it), you may even decide to walk away from a job or something else because it doesn’t align closely enough to the priorities you’ve set for yourself. I have done that on a couple of occasions and I haven’t regretted my decisions yet and don’t think I ever will.
Stop wasting your time living on the fire truck everyday and start living on the golf course.
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