How to Prioritize Tasks and Work in Workplace, Plan Your Work and Meet Deadlines
Picture this: You’ve got a number of tasks on your plate and your to-do list is all messed up — just like your work life.
Isn’t it something we all can relate to?
There comes a phase when we feel stuck in a routine which has no structure, no planning, and things start to fall apart slowly and gradually. This is what happens when you don’t know how to prioritize tasks and manage projects at work.
It won’t be wrong to say that we’ve all been there in such a situation and seen many others as well. If we really want to grow professionally and want to keep our sanity intact, then we must learn how to prioritize tasks and work in the workplace. It might seem a little overwhelming but definitely not impossible.
“Looking for a tool to prioritize tasks and manage projects? Try ProofHub.”
ProofHub presents you some techniques to plan your work and meet your deadlines in the most efficient way:
1. Ranking tasks on a To-do list
Let’s start with the basics. Ranking your tasks on a scale of 1–10 is perhaps one of the oldest ways and simplest ways to prioritize tasks on your list. Grab a pen and paper and list down the number of tasks that need to be done for the day.
You can either give a number to every task or write them down in terms of their preference as well. For example, number 1 means the most important task of them all and so on. This technique works best to develop more accountability towards one’s work.
Here are some easy and straight forward to-do list tips that will make your job a lot easier:
- Keep your to-do list simple. Keep it in mind that your to-do list needs to be completely checked off till the end of the day.
- Create your to-do list the day before. Make sure that you start your day with total clarity of what you have to do.
- Prioritized your to-do list and start with the most difficult task. If you’re like most professionals, you usually have more than a dozen tasks to do on a regular day but not all of them are important. Think about tasks that are urgent and important and only add those tasks to your to-do list.
- Be strategic about your time and energy. You’ve got 7–8 hours a day to finish every task on your to-do list. Plan your time and energy around every task wisely and you’ll be good.
- Limit your to-do list to a maximum of three items. Make sure that these 3 tasks are the ones that you “really need to do”.
2. Grouping
As the name suggests, in this method you can group tasks or other requirements in a group representing different priority levels. Each group acts as a certain part or stage that stakeholders can relate to. There are different ways to form groups. One of the ways is to define each group with critical, moderate, and optional priority levels so that you can group elements on their basis of priority.
Make sure each group is distinctly categorized so that there is no confusion or overlapping of priorities. However, in reality, not many people use this technique due to its complex approach. However, feel free to try it out and be your own judge.
3. ABCDE method
If you have too many tasks, then ABCDE method is definitely going to help you in a big way. It was created by Brian Tracy — a bestseller author and famous public speaker. The technique takes into account that different items on your checklist can take the same priority level.
Here’s how it works — You create a list of everything you have to do on a given day. Once you’re done with the list, start the ABCDE method.
- Tasks labeled “A” are most important. These are the tasks for which there can be serious consequences if you fail to complete them as planned/scheduled. If you have more than one “A” task on your to-do list, you must prioritize them as A-1, A-2, A-3, and so on, A-1 being the most important one.
- Tasks labeled “B” have minor consequences. These are the tasks that might make someone unhappy or inconvenienced if you don’t complete them as planned/scheduled, but they’re nowhere as important as an A task.
- Tasks labeled “C” have no consequences. These are the tasks that would be nice to do, but there are no consequences if you don’t complete them as planned/scheduled. The rule is that you should never complete a C task before completing the B and A tasks.
- Tasks labeled “D” need to be delegated. These are the tasks that you can easily delegate to someone else. Delegating these tasks allows you to free up more time for your A and B activities.
- Tasks labeled “E” need to be eliminated. These are basically tasks that you should eliminate altogether.
Note: Do not start tasks of B unless you’ve ticked off every task assigned to A.
4. Eisenhower Matrix
Eisenhower Matrix is a great productivity trick that helps you to make important decisions in figuring out what’s important and what’s urgent. If you have a ton of work and don’t have any idea where to start from, Eisenhower Matrix seems like a good option.
Named after the former U.S President Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is a 4-box system that helps you prioritize your tasks based on their urgency and importance. This way you can identify which tasks need to be done, delegated, or left undone. Also known as the Urgent-Important matrix, it is a quick way to get everything in order and save your day.
The Eisenhower matrix consists of four categories:
- Urgent and important tasks. These are the “do first” tasks on your to-do list. They can have a major impact on your long-term goals and thereby require your immediate attention.
- Not urgent but important tasks. The next category consists of tasks that might not be urgent, but are quite important. It is a must that you schedule these tasks into your to-do list or calendar.
- Urgent and not important tasks. Tasks under this category are urgent but not as important as the ones we discussed earlier. The best way to manage these tasks is to delegate them to someone else, whenever possible
- Not urgent and not important tasks. Tasks under this category are total time-wasters. These tasks are neither urgent nor important and don’t have any impact on your personal or organizational goals.
5. Bubble Sort technique
According to Wikipedia “Bubble sort is a sinking sort, is a simple sorting algorithm that repeatedly steps through the list, compares adjacent elements and swaps them if they are in the wrong order.”
The Bubble sort technique is one of the simplest methods to sort and prioritize an array of tasks. It is also referred to as a “sinking sort” because the smallest, least-important task “sinks” to the bottom of the array (your to-do list).
To prioritize requirements using bubble Sort technique, you take two requirements and compare them with one another. Following steps would help you understand Bubble Sort technique:
- Outline the requirements in a vertical column.
- Compare the top two requirements with each other to find out which one should have more priority over the other.
- If the lower set is more important than the one on the top, you can swap their positions.
- Repeat this comparison and keep swapping one over the other to determine which is the most important requirement until the very last requirement is sorted.
6. The Frog analogy by Brian Tracy
Mark Twain gave birth to this analogy between frogs and tasks. In his words, if you eat a live frog each day for breakfast, nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day. If you think how does this method work, then the idea is to eat the big and fat frogs (important tasks) as the first thing in the morning.
It helps you to beat the habit of procrastination at work. The technique suggests that if you’re not doing a specific task, that’s because it’s hard. Probably that’s why it suggests you to accomplish bigger tasks in the morning so that you have enough time to focus on other stuff at the end of the day.
7. MoScoW technique
The MoSCoW method is a prioritization technique used in management, business analysis, project management, and software development to reach a common understanding with stakeholders on the importance of each requirement.
In this prioritization technique, there are four priority groups: MUST have, SHOULD have, COULD have, and WON’T have that enable stakeholders to prioritize requirements in the most collaborative form.
The acronym stands for:
- MUST (Mandatory) — This category consists of must-have initiatives. These initiatives represent the non-negotiable needs of a project that are considered mandatory for the team to complete.
- SHOULD (High priority) — This category consists of should-have initiatives. These initiatives are important to the project, but they are not vital. If left out, these initiatives will have a minor impact on the project outcome.
- COULD (Preferred but not necessary) — This category consists of could-have initiatives. These initiatives are nice-to-have, but not necessary to the project. If left out, the team and the project still functions.
- WOULD (Can be postponed for future) — This category consists of will not have initiatives. If a initiative is in this category, it’s not a priority for the team, for now.
MoSCoW is often used with timeboxing, where a deadline is fixed so that the focus must be on the most important requirements, and as such, the technique is commonly used in agile software development approaches.
8. The Hundred Dollar Method
The Hundred Dollar Method is prioritization technique that can be used to prioritize items in a group or in case of multiple stakeholders. In this activity, each person within a group is given 100 dollars (assumption) and is asked to distribute it across the available items. They can distribute dollars equally or in a weighted distribution where they can give higher priority to a certain task than others.
Imagine that a group has to prioritize 5 items. If a person thinks each task has an equal importance, he can assign 20 dollars to each item. Or, he can distribute 40 to one task and 10 to the other, until all dollars are allocated. In the end, you can count the accumulated dollars for each item which would eventually be the most prioritized task.
Conclusion
So, what do you think which of the above techniques is best to prioritize work? Make sure to look for a technique that fits your needs the most and helps you get it all done in the least amount of time. To tell us how you prioritize your work, drop a comment below.
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