What is Prioritization?
Prioritization means putting some tasks and activities ahead of others. While prioritization should involve a degree of flexibility, you should try to stick to your priorities as much as possible. It can be all too easy to immediately respond to an issue as soon as it comes to mind, especially if it is causing stress. But you should consider the impact on your overall goals and priorities. When it comes to juggling multiple problems or tasks to complete, prioritizing them first may mean the difference between completing everything satisfactorily and completing nothing at all.
Adapted from OpenStax College Success,” by Amy Baldwin (University of Central Arkansas), James Bennett (Herzing
University), et al. Available openly at https://openstax.org/subjects/college-success
Here’s a list to keep in mind when sorting our goals to priority for efficient time management.
- Increase Personal Responsibility — Adopt the mindset that YOU are the only person responsible for your goals. Hindrances and roadblocks may appear along the way, but you are responsible for navigating around them and overcoming them. Take control of the journey! Issues are not other people’s problems. They are for you to solve.
- Reward Yourself for Completing the Task — We are all motivated by rewards. Use this to your advantage and give yourself rewards for a job well done.
- Make Certain They are YOUR Goals — Again, your motivation level is not as high if the end result is not something you want to achieve.
- Visualize the Results — Keeping in mind the benefits and visualizing the end results of each goal is extremely effective in keeping motivated.
- Break the Goal Down into Manageable Tasks — As with any task, accomplishing the whole is easier when each part is tackled individually.
- Tap into Other People’s Energy — Surround yourself with other people that are motivated. As humans, we are social creatures, which means our moods and emotions can be influenced by others. If you are around other positive people that all work toward achieving their own goals, their energy can become infectious.
- Remind Yourself why You Set the Goal — This last item is of the utmost importance. Especially for long term goals. Sometimes it is too easy to become mired in the drudgery of a difficult task and forget why you are doing something in the first place. Reminding yourself of the end goal helps reinforce everything you do that works toward your goal.
Manage Procrastination
Simply put, procrastination is the act of delaying some task that needs to be completed. It is
Adapted from OpenStax College Success,” by Amy Baldwin (University of Central Arkansas), James Bennett (Herzing University), et al. Available openly at https://openstax.org/subjects/college-success
something we all do to greater and lesser degrees. For most people, minor procrastination is not a
cause for great concern. But there are situations where procrastination can become a serious
problem with a lot of risk: when it becomes a chronic habit, when there are a number of tasks to
complete and little time, or when the task being avoided is very important
- Get Organized: The most effective way to combat procrastination is to use management strategies such as schedules, goal setting, and other techniques to accomplished tasks in a timely manner.
- Put Aside Distractions: Distraction are the primary way people procrastinate. It is too easy to play a video game a little while longer, check out social media, or finish watching a movie when we are avoiding a task. Putting aside distractions is one of the primary functions of setting priorities.
- Reward Yourself: This is for everyone different.
- Be accountable — Tell someone else: A strong motivational tool is to hold ourselves accountable by telling someone else we are going to do something and when we are going to do it. This may not seem like it would be very effective, but on a psychological level we feel more compelled to do something if we tell someone else. It may be related to our need for approval from others, or it might just serve to set a level of commitment.
Thank you for reading this post with time-management tips. Hopefully they can help you a bit. Also, resources included. Just follow the link bellow and you can get free college books.
Love,
Bloom
Source used: Managing time and priorities from https://openstax.org/subjects
The procrastination one especially hit me. I’ve struggled with that. But I’m proud to say I’m getting better in certain aspects of it. My procrastination is typically fear-based; fearing putting in a lot of time and energy into something that ends up failing. I think what’s helped me cope with that is realizing it’s not really a fail because I still gain from a failure by learning… that is, if I even fail the project I haven’t started to begin with. Thank you for this article… it makes me rethink certain things and it also makes me reinforce things I know but don’t want to forget and go backwards.
This was very helpfull, thanks and keep up the good work!