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Priorities: how to decide what to do, and when.
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Johnson, Susan R. |
| Copyright Year | 2010 |
| Abstract | Deciding what to do and when to do it is among the most challenge aspects of improving your personal productivity. Clearing your workspace, filing, even emptying your e-mail inbox is simple by comparison. Why? “How to decide what to do when” cannot be reduced to an algorithm. Days never turn out as predicted, so even advance planning does not insure successful completion of today’s list. What you need is a framework and flexibility. I’ll provide a framework, and you will need to provide the flexibility. In my next essay (yes, this is a teaser), I’ll execution i.e. how to get done what you have decided needs to be done. What to do: Develop an inventory of current projects “The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world.” – James Fenimore Cooper When faculty talk about “priorities” they are usually referring to the achievement of a goal, such as a promotion, a research breakthrough, or a leadership position; and students are thinking of a degree, or a job. But you can’t “do” promotion, scientific discovery, leadership, or a degree. Instead, you reach these goals by achieving a series of specific outcomes, which I am going to refer to as “projects” (Allen, 2001). Examples of projects are writing a paper, submitting a grant, preparing a lecture, planning a trip, buying new lab equipment, attending a leadership course, taking a course, writing a dissertation, and so on. Step 1: Start with a full deck. If I asked you to list your projects, the odds are you would respond with a short list of projects that support your major goals. But you have a large number of other projects to which you have committed to complete over the next few days, weeks or months: your son’s birthday party, a new home computer purchase, next week’s new student lecture, tomorrow’s conference call preparation, and so on. Most people try to keep a “list” of their high priority projects in their head, and don’t keep track of other projects at all – except when a deadline looms. Here is the recommendation (Allen, 2001): keep a written list of all your projects. You may object that you can remember everything. I doubt it - most people have between 30 and 70 current projects, and the brain is not the safest storage medium. You may also object that the “high” priority and “low” priority projects don’t belong on the same list. But if you have committed to complete a project, no matter how small, the work required has to be considered when you are planning your time. For the same reason, you must include on the list your projects from “home” as well as “work.” A third common objection is this: “…but the list will be so long!” Exactly. If you are really over-committed, the only way out is to face the facts, which leads us to Step 2. Step 2: Remove the jokers from the deck. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.thrivingamidstchaos.com/files/Priorities.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
