Get More Done – The Keys to Better Prioritization
Monday, January 4, 2010 at 6:50PM | Kathleen Nadeau, Ph.D. 
Many people have difficulty prioritizing their daily tasks. “All of my tasks are important! They’re all ‘A’s’,” you might think. Even when everything is important, you still have to decide what to do first, second, and third.
Over-commitment can lead to difficulty prioritizing
Sometimes, when you have too many “A’s” on your list, your difficulty with prioritizing may really be a difficulty with over-commitment. If you have too many A’s and too little time, by definition, you are in a state of over-commitment.
Whose priority is it?
In order to prioritize, you need to be clear about whose priorities you are trying to meet. Very few of us are in a position to consider only our own priorities. We must take into account the priorities of those we work for, those we work with, and those we live with. Your difficulty in prioritizing may actually be a hidden struggle between what you want to do and what others want you to do.
Prioritizing by Crisis
If you don’t plan and prioritize your tasks, you’ll tend to fall into a pattern of prioritizing by crisis – that is, waiting to do things until a deadline looms or a crisis is about to occur. There are many problems with this sort of prioritizing. First, you won’t do your best work when you’re always in a time crunch; second, tasks that are very important, but never in crisis - may never get done.
Squeaking wheel prioritizing
Related to prioritizing by crisis, squeaking wheel prioritizing is a pattern of letting others set your priorities for you by responding to whoever is complaining the loudest. If your spouse explodes in anger because you’re “never home”, then your spouse becomes your priority, however briefly. If your boss is under stress and begins pressuring you to complete a certain project, then that becomes your priority. People that prioritize reactively feel that they are always working hard to please others and rarely have time to please themselves. What they don’t realize is that they have let this pattern develop due to lack of prioritizing in the first place. It’s much easier to present a reasonable argument to a spouse who feels neglected or a boss who is under pressure if you have a careful plan laid out to present to them – a ready explanation for why it’s necessary to stick to your established priorities.
“Easy stuff first” prioritizing
A common way to avoid difficult top priority items, while seeming to work hard, is to always tackle the easy stuff first. The easy stuff – like responding to emails, returning phone calls, or attending meetings – can easily fill your day while you avoid the more important items that require sustained effort, planning or concentration.
Dart Board prioritizing
Another common method to avoiding the work of prioritizing is to just dive in and start doing the first thing that occurs to you. Instead of stopping to think, “dart board prioritizers” just tackle something almost at random and set to work, often on items that are of low importance.
Learning to prioritize well
If you live a crisis driven life, or your priorities are set by squeaking wheels, dart boarding or “getting the easy stuff out of the way” you’ll find, at the end of the day, the week, the month, or the career, that you haven’t spent your time doing the things that are in line with your core values – you’ve spent your time, but not well.
In order to set priorities, you first must set your goal. For example, if your highest priority is to redirect your career, it’s important to carve out time each day to take steps that will move you in that direction. If you allow your supervisor to set your priorities, you will find that while your job performance ratings may be high, that your life satisfaction rating is low.
Too many “A’s” in a busy day
Whether from over-commitment, or just from unforeseen circumstances, we all face days when we have multiple top-priority items and no way to meet them all. That’s when we have to step back and ask ourselves a few questions:
- Which items are top priorities according to my core values?
- What is the consequence of not meeting each of these top priority tasks?
- Is there anyone else that I can delegate one of my top priority items to?
Once you’ve answered those questions, the order of priority you give each task should become clearer.
Reader Comments (12)
While I appreciate your experience and expertise with adult ADD, it seems to me that your advice is fairly typical of "organization experts." The problem with this sort of advice is that people with serious ADD (myself included) cannot rigorously follow these precepts - or we would be doing so already. So... any "outside the box" tips for us? Thanks!
I have to agree with AGInvestor. This is a very clear definition of the problem. What I would like to see is practical ways to avoid falling prey to these pitfalls.
Ditto. Also, advice on how to deal with this sort of situation would also be helpful:
* Which items are top priorities according to my core values?
All of them--all work ones are A1++++ according to the Big Boss; all the home ones are A1+++ because I've fallen so far behind trying to cope with work that I'm in danger of losing my house, relationship, etc.
* What is the consequence of not meeting each of these top priority tasks?
Homelessness, joblessness, and breakup of relationship.
* Is there anyone else that I can delegate one of my top priority items to?
No one, because the relationship has broken because of the above.
Pretty much the above sounds like smug platitudes when there is the rock and the hard place and everyone in your life is now "too busy" to return the favor of the time you devoted to them earlier during their crises, because what comes around goes around, dontcha know? Only, it's not coming around. Now what?
I think we have to add repect for our "nature" your self awarness. Not everyone is made to fit the perfect resume of the best of the best. Most probably they will have more difficulties on "the best of the best world" - if you´re lucky all coincidences may help - trying to realize when all these factors happen is a challenge that some of these tips, perhaps, wll help - but most of it, respect and challenge your limits. Emotions build mankind.
Finally some honest feedback about ADD time management. If we could do these things, we would not be wrestling with ADD. Duh.
Again, the advice above is like saying to a person with one leg "walking is easy, you just put one leg in front, then the other, and so on."
If we had two legs, we wouldn't be looking for advice on how to walk with one.
Kathleen, thanks for the tips. Just reading your articles is always so inspiring and motivating to me!
Hi
I don't agree with you. It's obvious that ADD people (I also am one) will have more difficulties applying these rules.
But this article here only tells the rules. And to me, knowing these rules permit me to think about my situation and maybe to find new ways to solve my problems. Or maybe not. And not writing the article, because some think it's unusable for ADD people, wouldn't have me think again about how to prioritize tasks.
So OK, for ADD people there should probably be another article which may help, but I believe the very ADD nature is such that in the end, there is no miracle solution to priorization and organization.
Critics need to read to the bottom:
" * Which items are top priorities according to my core values?
* What is the consequence of not meeting each of these top priority tasks?
* Is there anyone else that I can delegate one of my top priority items to?"
Values and consequences are key. This is very helpful. It might have been better highlighted toward the top of the article. Anyway, Dr. Nadeau, *ADD-Friendly Ways* is one of the most helpful books I've read, period. Thank You.
All the dialog on this blog post has actually been more helpful to me than the post itself. Rather than seeing many of our comments as "criticism," perhaps readers could understand that we're genuinely seeking help rather than platitudes, lists and rules. Again, if we could follow "simple" advice, we wouldn't be reading Dr. Nadeau's blogs in the first place. I also bought Dr. Nadeau's book several years ago and tried to use it, but it didn't work for me. Does anyone know if Dr. Nadeau actually has ADD? Thanks, everyone, for being here and trying to rise above our limitations and find the fun in ADD (but still get things done)!!
Well, I think the post was an excellent overview of prioritizing and of seeing some of the potential problems with getting things done. What I've come to realize is that I need to understand more process level information. Such as, when would I do XYZ. I need things broken down even smaller. example: you get a call for a request for service - 1. do this 2. do that 3. save file 4. etc. And, if I'm learning a large system like a database program that manages business workflow - then I need to understand when I would go into each of the 'tabs' or screens.
And this is the problem, isn't it? If we could, we would.
In my experience as an ADDhead, my two underlying problems with time and priorities are:
First, I have no sense of it, so unless I time basic activities three or four times, take the highest number of minutes or hours or days, and write it down to refer to, I have no idea how long something is going to take, even if I have done it fifty-two times before.
Second, the overall effect in my life is that I create a huge backlog, which overwhelms me.
The only solution to that, and I have to keep doing it, is, "Just say no." I write "NO" in red at the top of my weekly calendar when life feels out of control, and then everything that is optional...everything...gets a "no."
I have also learned that it is best to admit to those close that I am overwhelmed when I am, and that I need help when I do, and to describe carefully exactly what the feeling or circumstance is at that moment. People can be wonderful, and if they never are (allowing for a reasonable amount of impatience with us), they have no place in our intimate life.