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5. Gather everything you need before you start working, and have only
one major task in front of you at a time.
6. Handle each piece of paper only once, and take some action on each
item when you pick it up. Whenever possible, delegate it, defer it,
throw it away or handle it immediately.
7. Make every minute count, especially when you travel by air. By
organizing properly, you can get a full day’s work done on a single
flight.
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Chapter Four
Establish Priorities on Your Activities
“Success is a process of diverting one’s scattered forces into one powerful
channel.” (James Allen)
Your ability to set priorities among your goals, tasks and activities is the key
to personal effectiveness. This is not easy to do. The natural human tendency
is to “major in minors” and to work very diligently on things that in many
cases need not be done at all. You must learn to swim against this natural
current, to violate the “Law of Least Resistance” and to keep focused on
those things that can really make a difference in your life.
There are several proven ways for you to set your own personal and business
priorities. These are organized methods of thinking that enable you to select
the relevant over the irrelevant, the important rather than the merely urgent
and the tasks with long-term consequences rather than those that are fun,
easy and which give immediate gratification.
Begin With Your Values
To set proper priorities, you begin with your values. What is really important
to you? Of all the things that are important to you, what is most important?
What do you believe in? What do you stand for? Developing clarity about
your values before you begin setting priorities in your business and personal
life is essential to high levels of effectiveness.
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Peak performance and high self-esteem only occur together when your
activities and your values are congruent with each other. It is only when
what you believe and what you are doing fit together like a hand in a glove
that you feel truly happy.
On the other hand, incongruence, or lack of alignment between your values
and your activities leads to stress, unhappiness and dissatisfaction.
Whenever you find yourself doing something on the outside that is
inconsistent with your beliefs on the inside, you experience stress and
conflict. The starting point of peak performance is therefore for you to
choose, on the basis of your values, what goals and tasks are most important
to you.
Free to Choose
Human beings have been defined as “choosing organisms.” You are always
making choices of some kind. You are always choosing between what you
value more, and what you value less. The wrong choice, based on your true
values, can lead to frustration, underachievement and failure.
The best way to determine your values is to look at your actions. You
always act in a manner consistent with what is most important to you at the
moment. It is not what you say, or wish, or hope, or intend that counts. It is
only what you do that tells you, and others, what you truly believe.
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To know yourself, look at your behaviors. Observe the choices you make
hour-by-hour and day-by-day. Especially, look at the way you spend your
time. This is one of the best reflections of your true values and priorities in
each area. You choices tell you, and others, who you really are inside.
Your Order of Values
You may have several values regarding your family, your work, your
interactions with others, and with regard to yourself personally. The rule is
that you will always choose a higher order value over a lower order value.
You always choose the value that is the most important to you in that
situation, over values that are less important.
It is only when you are forced to choose between two alternatives that you
reveal to yourself, and to others, what is most valuable to you. The order in
which you choose your values determines the quality of your character and
your personality. Changing your order of values actually changes the person
you are.
Here is an example of how similar values, but in a different order of priority,
makes one person different from another. Imagine that you have two men,
Bill and Tom. Each of them has the same three main values in life: Family,
Health and Career Success. But each of them has these values in a different
order.
Bill’s order of values is family, health and career success. This means that
his family comes before his health and career, and his health comes before
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his career. Whenever he is forced to make a choice about how he allocates
his time, his family comes first.
Tom has the same values, but in a different order. His order of values is
career success, family and health. This means that whenever Tom has to
choose between career success and his family, career success comes first, his
family comes second and his health comes third.
Here is the question. Would there be a difference in personality and
character between Bill and Tom? Would there be a small difference or a
large difference? Which of the two would you like to have as a friend?
Which one of the two would you trust more and be more comfortable with?
When you evaluate people from the standpoint of their values, the answers
become clear.
You Are Your Values
Your true values are only and always expressed in your actions, and your
choices. Many people say that their family comes first in their lives. But if
you look at the way they organize their time and their life, it is obvious from
their actions that work, golf, socializing and other activities are more
valuable to them than their families, because that is how they allocate their
time.
When people are single, their values are quite different from when they get
married and have children. As a single individual, without responsibilities
for others, your values may be work, socializing, travel, fun, sports and other
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activities. But as soon as you get married and have children, your values
change dramatically. Almost overnight, your spouse and your children take
precedence over everything else. And when your values change, you become
a different person.
The starting point of managing your time, and setting your priorities, is for
you to think through who you are, and what is really important to you. Once
you have done that, you continually organize and reorganize your activities
so that what matters most always comes first.
Listen to Your Intuition
You can use the “inner peace test” to determine whether or not what you are
doing is the best thing for you. You can always tell if it is right for you
because, whenever you are doing something that is in complete alignment
with your values, you feel happy inside.
Whenever you do something that is inconsistent with your values and with
your own personal organization of priorities, you feel uncomfortable. You
experience stress. You get little enjoyment from your work or activities.
Sometimes people work at jobs that they don’t enjoy. As a result, they feel
frustrated and dissatisfied. This is not because there is anything wrong with
the job. It simply means that this particular job is wrong for that particular
person.
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This is an important point to understand. There are many jobs, and parts of
many jobs, that you don’t enjoy and which you instinctively avoid. It is easy
to slip into the belief that there is something wrong with the job or the
company, when neither may be true. The job is a good job, but it is not the
right job for you. The company may be a good company, but your position
in it is not aligned and attuned with your unique set of values, convictions
and talents.
Look Into Yourself
What parts of your life and work give you the greatest pleasure and
satisfaction? What parts of your life are the most successful? Where are your
activities out of synchrony with your basic values and convictions? Where
are they in harmony?
In setting your priorities and organizing your life, imagine that you could
change anything, in any way you wanted. Imagine that you owned the entire
company and you could design your ideal job so that you were doing only
the things that you most enjoyed all day long. What changes would you
make?
Apply zero based thinking to your work. Ask continually, “If I were not
doing this today, knowing what I now know, would I get into it again
today?”
In our seminars we often talk about the “C” word. This word stands for
“Courage.” When you begin to examine yourself and your life on the basis
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of your values, and what is really important to you, you have to develop the
courage to follow wherever this line of reasoning leads. And it often leads to
your making fundamental changes in the way you live your life and do your
work.
If you say that one of your most important values is “peace of mind,” or
personal happiness, then you have to be willing to stand back and look at
your life honestly and objectively. Then go through your life systematically
and adjust or eliminate those situations and activities that take away your
feelings of inner peace and personal happiness.
Clear Values Lead to Clear Priorities
Once you are clear about your values, either at home or at work, it is much
easier for you to set priorities. I conducted a value setting exercise with a
large national corporation some time ago. When we started, they had 250
projects that they were working on, at various stages of completion. By the
time we had determined the true values and strengths of the company, fully
80% of those projects had been crossed off and discontinued. By practicing
values clarification, the company was able to get back to focusing on the
things that it did the best, and enjoyed the most.
When you evaluate your goals and objectives to assure that they are
consistent with your values, and with what is most important to you, you can
more easily set priorities that are in harmony with the very best person you
can be.
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Apply the Pareto Principle
The starting point of setting priorities, once you have determined your
values, is to apply the Pareto Principle, the 80/20 Rule, to every part of your
life.
This rule was named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who
formulated it in 1895. He concluded, after many years of research, that
society could be divided into two groups of people. The first group, 20% of
the population, he called the “vital few,” the people and families who
controlled 80% of the wealth of Italy. The other 80% he called the “trivial
many,” those who controlled only 20% of the wealth.
Further experimentation proved that the 80/20 Rule applied to virtually all
economic activities. According to this principle, 20% of what you do will
account for 80% of the value of all the things you do. If you have a list of ten
items to work on at the beginning of the day, two of those items will usually
be more valuable and important than all the others put together. Your job is
therefore to determine the top 20% of tasks before you begin.
The 80/20 Rule Prevails In All Areas
In your business, you will find that 20% of your customers account for 80%
of your revenues. 20% of your products or services account for 80% of your
profits. 20% of your salespeople make 80% of your sales. You will even find
that 20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your problems. The
80/20 Rule reigns supreme.
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In your personal life, this rule also applies. 20% of what you do with your
family will give you 80% of the results, rewards and satisfactions that you
enjoy. 80% of the time that you go out for dinner, you will go to 20% of the
restaurants that you are familiar with. When you go to your favorite
restaurants you will order the same dish 80% of the time.
In your work, before you start doing anything, you always ask, “Is what I am
about to do among the top 20% of activities that account for 80% of the
value of everything I do?” Every hour of every day you should apply this
principle to your work. Take time to think before you act, and then
concentrate on the 20% of the tasks and activities that represent the highest
payoff for you and your company.
Separate the Urgent from the Important
In setting priorities, it is important that you remember to separate the urgent
from the important. Remember that the urgent is seldom important, and the
important is seldom urgent.
An urgent task is something that must be dealt with immediately. It is
usually determined by forces external to yourself, like your boss or your
customers. Very often it is a ringing telephone or an unexpected interruption
from a coworker. These are all urgent because they are “in your face.” But
they are often not important in terms of their long-term value.
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Perhaps the most important word in setting priorities is the word
“consequences.” Something that is important is something that has serious
potential consequences for doing it or not doing it. Something that is
unimportant is something for which there are few or no consequences.
Sometimes, it doesn’t matter if it is done at all.
Important tasks, on the other hand, are those that can be put off or
procrastinated upon in the short-term. These are the bigger, more difficult
and more important tasks that can have serious long-term consequences on
your life and work. But they are seldom urgent, at least at the beginning.
Your Top Priorities
The most pressing tasks on your lists are those tasks that are both urgent and
important. They have to be done immediately. There are significant potential
consequences for doing them or not doing them.
You should organize your workday so that you first of all stay on top of the
tasks that are both urgent and important. These are things that must be done
