Keeping It All Together: Test Your Priorities

As we quickly move into 2nd Quarter it is easy to continue to be caught up in the bustle of day to day business in the drive to make sure you meet your monthly financial goal. It can be tempting to spend a significant portion of you time fighting the myriad fires that crop up every day.
Now is a good time to step back and set laser-sharp focus on the really important priorities, so you can keep from spending time on what is not.

By taking time to review your business goals and results the priorities should be unmistakably clear and specific. “The right priorities combined with appropriate follow-through, keep the truly important things from being driven off the radar screen in the day-to-day hurly-burly of life at work where everything can seem urgent and important.”, says Ram Charan author of Know-How: The 8 Skills that Separate People Who Perform from those Who Don’t.

Think of priorities as the pathways to your major goals. If you truly chose goals that are important to you, their achievement will have significant effect on your business and your life.

Haphazard planning of priorities is a result of following established habits in response to circumstances. Habits are actions taken without conscious decision. Your goals are too important to leave to chance.

———————>
Set Priorities:

  • A crystalized program of goals provides a sound basis for setting priorities.
  • Get in touch with where you are spending your time; check to see if you are working on high priority, high pay-off activities.
  • Daily, identify specific periods of time for activities that are high pay-off, everything else gets worked around them.
  • Set deadlines, they exercise a subtle effect on your attitude.
  • If your priorities seem overwhelming procrastination can set in. Break each project or situation into smaller steps.
  • Learn to delegate and get agreement from everyone you need support from as to what the priorities are.
  • Take one half hour per week to plan and regroup, it is the best priority activity you can give yourself.

The Challenge: Are you making the progress you want to make? Re-evaluate your priorities and goals and enjoy the process.