How do you determine priorities in scheduling your time?

This is a question on time mgt. You need to set your goals first. Then decide What brings you more hapiness, more income, more peace of mind, more relationships, sense of achievement etc. In each facet of your life - Work, me time, family time, Social time etc Your priorities will differ according to your responsibilities in each of the facet and your goals. Out of your todo list sorted according to your facet, and the4 quadrants - urgent and important, urgent not important, not urgent and important and not urgent and not important. These can be ABC& D tasks respectively. Your priority will be A - task first, then C task. Tasks clasified as C will give succes in your facet of life, and help reduce A task that makes you be busy. You need to manage B tasks as it will affect your relationships, the least priority will be tasks clasified as D which you should try to avoid. These are the time wasting tasks which will not bring you any thing in life, but temperory fun and enjoyment that will not contribute to any success in your life. It all depends on how skillfully you can clasify all the tasks. That needs training, discipline and mentoring.

As industrial engineer I learned to prioritize all tasks to High, medium, low lists. I always try to do the High list first. In every working situation, collegue have always complimented me on how well I manage my time. I enjoy the social atmosphere of my workplace but I make it a point not to waste much time on playing Or using my phone. I’ve also learned that the average office worker spends about an hour a day handling e-mail. I make it a point not to deal with my e-mail more than once or twice a day, and I filter my messages into folders so I can prioritize the way I deal with them.

1. Separate the tasks into priorities.2. Determine which of the highest priorities are directly revenue (customer) related. They would be first.3. For all high priority tasks, what can you delegate? What can you separate into smaller unit tasks that help achieve the goal.4. Are all of the tasks that are 'top' priority all incumbent on you to complete. Are there other 'deliverables' which must happen before you accomplish your part? 

• Make a List: First thing in the morning, write down everything that needs to get done that day. Once you have everything down, separate the items into urgent vs. non-urgent to determine the top priorities for that day.

• Assess the Value: Completing certain tasks will offer more benefit than others. For example, I have a rule that client work comes before internal work. Because client work not getting done has bigger ramifications more often than internal work.  

• Be Honest: When creating your list of priorities, be realistic about your bandwidth. Setting unattainable goals will only cause disappointment down the road.

• Be Flexible: To be able to effectively prioritize, you must be able to deal with changing priorities. Take them as they come and decide if they are urgent or not.

• Cut the Cord: As a perfectionist, this is the one that I struggle with the most. When something is really important, it’s easy to get caught up in the details and end up spending way too much time on a project or task. Spending too much time on one priority, however, prevents you from getting other stuff knocked off your list. Acknowledge when you’re doing this and enforce strict deadlines to prevent yourself from going down the rabbit hole.