Priorities

I begin by apologizing for not posting anything last week. I had an SAT on Saturday and decided not to post anything. That’s not an excuse, but an explanation that transitions us perfectly into today’s topic. While writing these posts is one of my top priorities, I felt lazy last week and ended up letting lazy beat writing. Besides my terrible work ethic, today’s post is about what priorities are, what makes them important, and how to set effective priorities.

Priorities are what you’d think they are: objectives with an importance value attached to them that decides what order you do those objectives in. A pretty simple concept. However, the challenge that often comes with them is sticking with those priorities. Often, we know what task is most important and the time it’ll take to accomplish said task. However, we come to it and end up second guessing ourselves and doing the task that we think should be done first, everything falls apart, and now we’re sad and all our papers are on fire. We don’t want that happening. Alongside that, priorities can be detailed or big picture. Detailed meaning things you must accomplish within a week, or a few days. Big picture meaning things you want to do with your life: your big goals, your life’s purpose. While priorities can definitely change, there are many different ways that priorities can manifest in your life.

That takes us into the importance of not only having priorities, but sticking with them. Priorities give you a rough structure; they help you have a plan of action, and while it’s not always fun to have a plan of action—especially for the extroverts—it does make things easier. Sticking to priorities is even more important. When you have even a rough idea of what should be done first, second, etc., you will be more calm when approaching the actual doing part. You’ll know what to do, you’ll probably have thought about how to do it at that point, and it’ll not only help keep you calm, but also be more efficient. And if they’re big picture priorities—this likely doesn’t apply to everyone—they’ll help provide closure, a feeling like you have an idea of what’s going to happen in your life (even though you don’t, but that’s a different topic).

How then, does one create effective priorities? Let’s start with detailed priorities, the more immediate ones. First, look for a deadline. Which tasks have them, and which don’t? Compare them and the first sort should be whatever must be done first: if the deadline is the next day, then it should be your top priority. If the deadline isn’t next day, or there are more things on the list, compare the estimated time, or definite time if you have one, of the tasks. Remember, if you estimate the time it’ll take for a task, multiply by two, because it will never be as short as you imagine. If the time to accomplish the task is very short, then move it up the priority list. The quicker you can get it out of the way, the less will be on your plate, and you will have less stress and more efficiency for the more hefty tasks. Lastly, enjoyment. How much joy, fulfillment, and/or happiness does the task bring you? After comparing the deadlines and the times, take the things you enjoy and move them down, not to the bottom, but while looking at the times, If you have two things that’ll take 5-10 minutes, move the one that you enjoy the most down. While this may seem counterintuitive, it gives you incentive and something to look forward to after you get all the other things done. And if you’ve read Cool It, you know that having something to look forward to helps bring out positivity in you, and it’ll give you more reason to doing the things you may dislike or not care about. Now, if you’re making big picture priorities, you should be looking at fulfillment over other things. You should have one ultimate purpose, with the understanding that it may change, and form smaller goals and priorities and evolve yourself to achieve those until you fulfill your ultimate goal.

Those are priorities. Again, if you’re an extrovert, they’re definitely harder to maintain. However, maintaining these priorities are a great method forgetting things done, keeping stress minimal, and doing everything in the most efficient way. With all that said, I apologize once more for letting my priority of writing slip last week. Next week I promise a post, and I’ll see you then.

I hope you have a great week. Peace.