Peace of Mind Organizing

Priority management

19 March 2008

On the You Can Have What You Want podcast I mentioned in yesterday’s post, host Michael Neill and guest Steven Pressfield mentioned something that keeps coming to mind this week.

Time management isn’t about managing time. It’s about managing priorities. We all have the same amount of time in a day to deal with. How we use it is an indication of our priorities.

If you’re not accomplishing as much in a day as you’d like, take stock of how you’re actually spending your day. Are you at least getting the important stuff—the stuff that reflects your values and goals—done? If not, time to examine your priorities in relation to how you spend your time.

These aren’t earth-shattering revelations, I understand. But sometimes it’s important to take a step back and take stock of how things are going. Personally, I have some catching up—and some priority management—to do. (Mark Forster, whose Do It Tomorrow time-management system I’m in the process of implementing, calls it “going through the audit procedure.”)

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been so busy with clients I’ve not had as much desk time as usual, so I’m falling behind on tasks. The great satisfaction I’ve been feeling over really accomplishing what I set out to do has been starting to evaporate.

Time to hunker in, see what’s going awry, and manage my priorities. While I have a lot that I need and want to get done, I can say with all honesty that right now, taking a little time to relax is a high priority!

Tagged with: balance, mark forster, michael neill, priorities, productivity, time management

Comments