Prioritising is a legendary tool when it comes getting value out of the actions that you do. The problem is we often do lots of little things without thinking about it. Before long we have run out of time and have very little to show for it.

The problem here is not taking a step back to consider what actual value we get out of our activities for the amount of time we put into them.

Often we see something and think, ‘oh I need to do that’ and we jump on it. But the truth is that a lot of things don’t actually need to be done, or atleast not right now.

A good example is making the desk in my room tidy. It is a mess and I can’t use it for anything other than piling things in piles which is what I do to great effect.

To tidy it up would probably only cost me an hour or so. But what value would it provide me?

I prefer to work and play in other parts of the house and the storage space on top of the desk is convenient. The space could be organised better for a few seconds time gain but that’s about it.

So really there is very little for me to gain from tidying it up. There are other things more worthwhile doing.

If my mindset was to just tidy up I would do it and the many other little side things that would be nice to have done. But this would come at a cost. All the other things that I would really like to do.

Prioritising Actions – The Software Development Approach

At work we identify things we would like a piece of software to do and then estimate how much effort it would take to do something.

In a day we know roughly how much time we have to do things. There a lot of things we would like to do(or think we should do) but the question we need to ask ourselves is what is worth most for our time.

Today at work I saw a bunch of features that would be very nice to have in the application but while we think they would be cool, there are a lot of other things that provide more value. So they will get done first.

In the end the piece of software will deliver the features of the greatest value. Simply because they were prioritised. A little bit of planning goes a long way.

Taking Priorities to your Life

Grab some index cards or tear up some paper.

Write on each card something you would like to do. Just write everything down that you think you should do. It is a short term activity, don’t spend more than a few minutes on it.

Now make a estimate on how long each activity would take, writing it down on the card. Easiest is hours or you can pick a baseline activity and say something will take x times longer than that (relative estimating).

Now for a day guess how many hours you will have for activities (or in the case of relative estimating, how many times you could do the baseline activity).

Now order the activities in the order of which you want most (or provides the most value), remembering that you only have so many hours available.

Knowing that there is a limit on what you can get done will force you to try to fit in what you want most into your day.

Anything that doesn’t fit into the day can be stored on a card to be re-prioritised tomorrow. So you don’t have to worry about tasks not getting done. They will simply get done when they provide enough value.

Using this approach keeps you getting the most out of your days, for less than 5 minutes of work.