We all have the same 24 hours everyday. Prioritizing helps make each hour count.
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Your phone goes off, and it is a new Instagram notification. Five minutes later, your phone goes off again, and it is a new game invitation on Facebook. By the time you have stopped swearing and posted status updates about how much you would rather drink molten lava than receive game invitations, your phone beeps again.
It is fair to say that we are in a very delicate relationship with our phones. It can be a disastrous distraction, but it can also catapult your productivity. That decision is in your hands.
Between remembering what you need to buy on your way home and that “thing” you still need to do at work, not to mention all the new emails that have miraculously appeared in your inbox, it can become easy to forget the really important things that you need to do.
You become so busy being busy that you forget to be effective. You spend your time killing off the easy things on your list. Or you just mindlessly work through your to-do list.
You tackle tasks as they land on your desk. Or for many, it is easier to just dive deeper into the world of social media distraction and ignore the mounting heaps of responsibility for as long as possible.
Your Phone to the Rescue
There are many ways that your phone can be your ally. I will be doing a post on that soon. But for this post, let us focus on the most important reminder on my phone (except for the one that says “Phone Mom”).
Every morning at 7:30, a reminder goes off that asks me one simple question.
“What 3 things do you need to do today?”
I close the reminder, open Wunderlist, and in my “Big 3” list, I write down the three most important things that need to happen for the day.
This reminder makes me very effective because it helps me to think about the actions that will really make a difference in my business. It helps me to focus on activities that will move me closer towards my goals.
Of course, there are many more things on my to-do list for the day. And I will systematically work my through them all. But by prioritizing the most important ones at the start of my day, planning becomes much easier.
There are days when my Big 3 is not big at all. And there are days when the Big 3 becomes the Big 4. The main aim of this exercise is prioritization. Not all activities are weighted equally. Some actions cause a small ripple effect and others a wave.
Deciding early on where you will focus, can make your day much more effective. As for the rest, does it need your specific attention? Could it be outsourced?
We all have the same 24 hours everyday. Make sure that you utilize your time well by focusing on activities that will make a drastic impact in your life and business.
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This article originally appeared on The Better Man Blueprint.
Photo Credit: Getty Images