My task list at the moment runs over 2 pages, and that’s a lot of tasks. Every day I have to assess where my time would be best spent given that I only have a set number of working hours in the day. What that means is that I take a view on the day’s priorities every day. I choose to work on a mix of project tasks (i.e. tasks that are on my project schedule) and other tasks that are still essential but that aren’t specifically linked to a project task. One of those might be preparing for a departmental presentation or setting up a training webinar for my team on general project management topics.
It’s helpful, however, to have a bigger picture view from time to time about how to prioritize your project tasks. Prioritizing can feel like an overwhelming job, especially if you have a To Do list as long as mine. Here are 5 shortcuts for prioritizing your work.
1. Reset Your Expectations
There are only so many hours in the day. As much as I would love more time to read, write articles and do all the family stuff as well, I can’t magic time from thin air. And I’m not prepared to compromise on sleep time!
I often end up with a long task list for the day and totally unrealistic expectations on myself about what I can achieve. Then I end up disappointed that I haven’t ticked off all the work as complete on my plan.
Reprogram yourself to manage your own expectations of what’s possible. You need to remember that there are ad hoc conference calls during the day, unexpected crises that need you in a meeting right now and the team member who needs a bit of advice which suddenly turns into a two-hour coaching session. These things happen and they all have an impact on what you can do in a day.
While we’re at it, reset the expectations of your stakeholders as well (especially your project sponsor). You can’t do everything so be clear about what is achievable and make sure they understand what you can realistically get done in any given day.
2. Standardize Your Categories
It helps to have a way to categorize your tasks, for example, High, Medium and Low. This makes it easy to see which categories have the most work in and where you should be focusing your effort every day (on the ones marked High).
However, don’t mix up your categories, using High for some essentials and then ‘1’ for others. I also know people who categorize by color. All the methods work, but they don’t all work together. It’s hard to compare the relative priorities of a ‘Blue’ task with a ‘Medium’ task and another ranked level ‘3’.
Find a system that works for you and stick to it. Personally I go for star ratings – the more stars next to an item, the more important it is.
3. Take Advice
You don’t need to know everything about everything and it’s common that you’ll be asked to work on something without really knowing how important it is. If a manager or project stakeholder gives you a task to do and you aren’t sure about how it fits with the rest of your priorities, then ask.
4. Delegate
Now you’ve got a way to categorize your work and some advice about what should be a priority, you’re in a good place to start working out how you are going to manage your time.
Delegating gives you the space to work on priority tasks. When you’ve got a lot to do and not much time to fit it all in, having an extra pair of hands can really help. This could be your project co-ordinator, a workstream lead or someone from the PMO. You can even delegate upwards to your project sponsor, especially for tasks around stakeholder engagement and communication.
Think carefully about what tasks should be delegated. You will probably want to hold on to the critical, time-sensitive tasks because then you’ll know for sure that they are under control. Some of the other work might be easy to handoff to someone else: you’ll know what will work best in any given situation.
5. Use Software To Manage
Finally, make it easy to switch your priorities around by using tools to help you manage. That might be an app like Remember The Milk, or a full-blown project plan in Primavera. If you are sharing your prioritized task list with other people, make sure that they have a way to access it so you all have a common understanding of what’s important right now. Seavus Project Viewer for Primavera is a great way to add this accessibility without the overhead of a full Primavera installation for people who don’t need it.
In summary, there are a number of shortcuts you can take to prioritize your work effectively but remember that just because a task is low priority today doesn’t mean it will be low priority tomorrow. You should be constantly reviewing your priorities to make sure that you adjust your workload to reflect any changes.