Artslim
 
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"If you really know what things you want out of life, it's amazing how opportunities will come to enable you to carry thm out". Quote by John M.Godard.  Jenny and max, 'Making a Splash' by artist, Kathy Shell
Priority Matrix

Is a system of sorting activities into High Urgency and low urgency activity.

And

High Importance and Low importance activity

High urgency-high importance activity is a 1/ priority, DO IT NOW, CRISIS

High importance low urgency activities are a 2/ priorityOpportunity, No time pressure.

High urgency, Low importance activity is a No 3/ priority, routine tasks and trivia, complete only after priority 1/ and 2/ are completed.

Low importance, low urgency activity, or 4/ priority, simply don’t need to be done until they become a no 3 priority and they often ‘go away’, before the need to complete them arises.

 

For peace of mind, try to keep most of your activities down in the high importance but low urgency area as much as possible.    For me, going to my gym is a high importance, low urgency 2/ activity and I need to watch that  that my need to do my weight bearing exercises for my bone health is not pushed aside by the trivial routine activities, of a 3/ priority.

So when I write a ‘to do list’ of 6 main activities I plan to do for the following day, I number them as a 1/ 2/ 3/ priority.  I never write down 4/ priority jobs, and I usually find something a lot more useful to do with my time, if something is becoming a 4/ priority it’s time I considered making changes in my life and eliminating the 4/ item as a part of my activities.

Planning a ‘to do list’

Decide on your (realistic dreams)  goals, believe in them

Make your action plan so you can see and believe in how you will achieve these goals.

Write a ‘to do list’ of 6 items to do tomorrow; take 3 of these items, directly from your action loan to achieve your goal.  So tomorrow,

2/Priority : I will attend gym.

2 priority: I will rebalance my supplies and choice selection of fresh fruit and vegetables so I will not go off track when I want to snack.

2 priority: I will interact with positive people, I will make time to have coffee at my gym and talk to people, this is my reason to choose to go to gym and not just exercise at home, this is part of my ‘care for the carer’, plan.

With those three items, taken from my action plan of how i intend to achieve my personal slimming goals, I can now add other items beginning with any priority 1/’s and working down to 2/s and then 3/s only if there is space on my list of 6 items to do tomorrow.

I will

1/ High urgency, high importance: Send the eldest grandson an birthday card.

2/ low urgency high importance to me: Shop at hardware store, Buy a pack of 6 self stick mirrors for the caravan and glue.

3/ Continue to tidy, spring clean house and put items out for garage sale Saturday as I work.

 

I try not to give myself more than 6 written down to do list items. 

I write these things down the night before the day I need to do them.  I review this list first thing in the morning.  I mark these items off as I do them.

If I complete all items, I can always add more.

I am FLEXIBLE.  Sometimes a new 1/ priority appears and you need to drop all other items on your to do list and attend to that 1/ priority NOW. 

At the end of each day, I check off all the items on my ‘to do list’ and I always PRAISE myself for what I have achieved.  I never berate myself for any thing I did not achieve.   This is especially important for mums and carers to remember.  Feel proud of what you do achieve, while you can be very skilful in guiding another, you cannot plan into your life the behaviour and activities  of the person you care for, you need to keep this ‘to do list’ loose and flexible and just try to not allow too many stressful 1/ priorities to occur and when they do, put all the 2/ priority activities aside, and don’t add the burden of guilt of not doing a 2/ priority, to the crisis of a DO IT NOW, urgent 1/ priority.

I then write out the ‘to do list’ for the following day and I reassess priorities.  Just because something was a 1/ or 2/ priority today does not mean it will have the same priority tomorrow.  He 2/ priority might now be an urgent, important, I/ or it might now, not be important or urgent and simply no longer needs to be included on the list.   Keep your priorities, flexible.  Stay loose and relaxed, forgiving in your expectations of yourself and be a loving, self nurturing best friend who is generous in self praise at what you do, have, and are achieving.  Nothing helps you achieve your goals better than going to bed feeling you are on track to achieving your goals, and that does not require perfection, simply consistently going to bed, and getting up in the morning, focussed on your goal, knowing you have an action plan that will allow you to achieve it and knowing that half of your to do list for the following day s leading you to your goal.

 

So your goal is ‘the size of an elephant’, seemingly insurmountable.  I felt like that when I was 115 kilo and wanting to be slim.  I felt like that when i had a large home and an art gallery and had to quickly downsize to a small home near family and become a full time carer for an ill husband. 

*”How do you eat an elephant”?.   ~~~ ‘One Bite at a time’.

Every day I scheduled an appointment with myself to look at the goal, look at the short term goals that were steps to achieve these big goals.  In fact if the big goal is too scary and frightening, then just look at the small short term goal today.  Look at the action plan to achieve this goal.  Actually have this written down where I see it.  Decide what I am going to do to take a bite out of the elephant. Write this in my ‘to do list’.  I do not have to ‘eat an elephant tomorrow; I simply am going to take a small manageable bite.

*If something that I am about to do, doesn’t move me towards my goals or something that is important to me at that time, then don’t do it.

 

 

There is more than one system of organizing your priorities, the Priority Matrix system is just one.  Be flexibly, this system might not be the one you choose.  I have used both this system and the Pareto Principle, the topic of my next time management introduction, post;  for four decades  and Mark McCormack of the ‘What they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School’ fame, says, ~

“I have never known a successful person who doesn’t operate from some sort of personal organisational system”

If you enjoyed this post you may like my other Time Management blog posts.
 


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