The key to success isn’t prioritizing your schedule. It’s scheduling your priorities.

or, how to get the new year off to a killer start without a gym membership.

Most of us struggle every day (or in even smaller units of time) to figure out the most important thing we need to do. We take inventories of what people expect from us, of what we’ve promised to do for others, of what’s fastest to complete, or of what feels like needs tackling right away. Then we prioritize our schedules around these needs.

But how do we prioritize a whole year‽

Take a tip from the general.

An Eisenhower chart — cleverly named for the US president and general that saved the world — is a simple quadrant graph that juxtaposes urgency (typically, the X-axis) with importance (typically the Y-axis). It helps you identify your priorities and focus on using your time well, not just filling it.

Download your copy (PDF)

What’s important to you? It’s easy to get caught up in urgency — or perceived urgency — and disregard what’s important. But I often find that the most important things aren’t particularly urgent and, therefore, must be consciously prioritized. (Illustration by the author)

An Eisenhower chart helps you:

1. Figure out what’s important to you.
2. Prioritize it.

Like a feature prioritization exercise for a piece of software, this analytical tool helps separate the must-haves and should-haves from the could- and would-haves. And it does so by challenging inertia and assumption — by making us validate the activities that eat up the only commodity we’ll never get more of: Time.

Start by listing everything you do — and everything you wish you were doing — on Post-Its or in Miro and honestly measure how urgent and important those activities are to you. Then take a moment. Look at it. This might be the first time you’ve let yourself acknowledge the fruitless things that keep you busy and leave your priorities unfulfilled.

What’s important and urgent?

• Deadlines
• Health crises
• Legal obligations (e.g., jury duty)
• Bills and taxes
• Rent or mortgage (if it’s the right time of the month)

What’s important but not urgent?

• Something you’re passionate about but which doesn’t have a deadline
• A long-term project
• Family time
• Planning
• Self-care

What’s urgent but not important?

• Phone calls
• Texts and Slacks
• Most emails
• Unscheduled favors
• Most interruptions

What’s neither important or urgent

• TV (yes, even Netflix)
• Social media
• Video games (unless it falls into the self-care category)
• Any communication arriving outside pre-defined or appropriate hours (e.g., heads down time, vacations, family time)

The goal is to identify what’s important, not just what’s urgent. And as you repeat this activity over the course of weeks or even years, it helps you become more conscious of how you spend your time and can have a tremendous impact on how well your time is spent. Because the humbling fact is: no one else is going to prioritize what’s important to you. Your loving partner, your supportive family, your boss, your clients — they all have their own priorities. They each have something that’s most important to them. And those priorities don’t necessarily align with yours.

And because the things that are most important to each of us — not necessarily urgent — need time in our schedules if they’re going to provide us with genuine and lasting self-actualization or tactical career success. These are our priorities. And you know what you’re supposed to do with priorities?

Prioritize them.

“The key is not to prioritize your schedule but to schedule your priorities.”
— Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Identifying what your priorities are is critical to getting them into your schedule. Because, if you want to travel or spend time with the kids or get a promotion or start a business, no one else is going to put that first. You have to. It is up to you to identify what’s important and then find time for it. And if time isn’t found for your priorities, you only have one person to blame.

This article was originally published at:
https://www.sharpen.partners/blog/the-key-to-success-isnt-prioritizing-your-schedule

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