Prioritizing Your Lists

Last week’s blog challenged you to become the next Richard Branson. I’m still waiting for that invitation to jump in your hot air balloon and travel over the Atlantic Ocean! But, more importantly, I hope my words got you thinking about list making.

I ended my previous blog, which was all about how successful you can be when you make lists, by asking the question, “How important is it to prioritize your list?”

Of course, the answer is that prioritizing your lists are absolutely critical, that is, if you want to do much bigger and better things!  However, most of us humans after we’ve made a list, will often make the mistake of NOT prioritizing the items on them. You may be thinking, “Hey, everybody knows you should prioritize!” And that may be true, but most people simply don’t do it, even if they know it’s very important!

I’m acquainted with many bright and intelligent people who treat virtually situation – every business deal, and every contact – equally. Ok, I’ve been guilty of doing that myself from time to time. People will even let a very low priority phone call or even a walk-in salesperson interrupt a high priority project or meeting that they are involved in. They have no sense of priority. They often move from one small, easy item to another small, easy item on their “to do list”, simply because they are easy and to get them out of the way.

Once in a while, if there is still time in the day, they’ll finally get to some important items, or even a top priority item. I’m sure most of us have done this, on occasion, but we need to realize that leaving our top priority items until later will hurt our progress and productivity to a large degree.

If we give it some advance thought and plan our day, we are more likely to stop ourselves from “taking the easy way” and not be oblivious to the great power of doing the top priority items first. Probably the biggest reason all of us can, and do, too often leave the top priority items until later is that those are usually very challenging and very difficult, and people just don’t want to push themselves. They do the easier, lower priority and only moderately important items first so they can check them off the list. I guess it makes them feel good or feel like they’re getting more done that way.

Have I taken the easy road myself?  Yes, of course I have. Most of us are very human in that way and we slip up once in a while. Sometimes we slip up more often than that. But by knowing that’s the wrong way to approach my list, I can concentrate on giving the top priority items a top priority position on my list which will help me reach great heights in my life.

If you dwell on this idea and acknowledge the fact that doing the easy things on your list first can keep you from accomplishing great things, you are much more likely to prioritize properly. And when you do slip up, and am totally aware of that slip up, you need to admit that to yourself and take corrective action. I am sure you can do this because I can and I’m pretty sure, you and I are not that different.