Prioritization - How to Decide What Matters Most in Life & Business (#5)
Today, what we're going to tackle is the importance of prioritization. So if you've ever asked yourself these questions in your business, this episode is for you. Have you ever asked yourself:
How do I prioritize everything on my plate without feeling overwhelmed?
Or how do I balance my business and personal life and address that guilt that I sometimes feel?
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Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Business Time Mastery podcast. I'm Ryan Lloyd, your host. I have been a productivity guru for 25 plus years, helping business clients every day to learn how to leverage time management to gain more revenue in their business.
Today, what we're going to tackle is the importance of prioritization. So if you've ever asked yourself these questions in your business, this episode is for you. Have you ever asked yourself: How do I prioritize everything on my plate without feeling overwhelmed? Or how do I balance my business and personal life and address that guilt that I sometimes feel?
How do I know what tasks are truly important? And I'm going to move the needle on my business and get me that revenue? Or how do I stop feeling overwhelmed with everything that I need to do? If you've asked yourself these questions in the past, this episode is for you. I'm going to provide you with some amazing tips and then at the end, some action items you can take today very easily to move the needle in your business.
And prioritization is all part of what I call the Business Time Mastery System. We've talked about the previous parts of this system in previous episodes. In the first episode, we talked about vision, values and goals and having that be the framework on which you build your time management system. Then we got into planning. How do you proactively plan your days and your weeks to align with those goals?
In episode three, we talked about calendars, and then in episode four, we talked about how to best leverage to-do lists. And this episode right now about prioritization really ties into your to do lists and making them effective. Just having a to-do list often does not work. You have to utilize prioritization.
So all that being said, prioritization on its own will not get you to where you want to go. This is part of a very intentional and effective system that if you build it, you're going to see changes in your business.
So let's get into prioritization. So the challenge with prioritization and why it sometimes feels impossible is because as a business owner, you're often wearing a lot of hats. You're the CEO, you're the marketer, you're the customer service rep. You have all of your other responsibilities outside of your business. It can feel very overwhelming and like prioritization is basically just impossible.
But I'm here to tell you it is not. So let's get into some key ways to solve this problem. There's lots of ways you could solve this. We're going to provide a few of those today, and hopefully it will help you.
The first thing I'll talk about is identifying high impact activities. So on previous episodes I've talked about the Eisenhower Matrix and some other ways that you can go about prioritizing. And I think I talked about that in the to-do list episode, episode four right before this, but here's another one that's really, really simple that you can take action on and do today.
And it's basically just simply asking yourself questions about the things that you're working on and the tasks you're choosing to do every day. And here's the questions you can ask. There's four of them. First question: Does this task directly contribute to my business growth or personal goals? Great question to ask yourself – answer that. And if the answer is no, then you need to look at ways of getting rid of that task or not doing it.
Second question: If I don't do this today, will it have long term negative consequences? So this speaks to urgency, right? Which is part of the Eisenhower Matrix. How urgent is the task and how important it is really? If it's not done today, is it really vital?
The third question you can ask yourself is: Is this a revenue generating activity for my business? At the end of the day, the whole point or goal of many businesses is to generate revenue. So we need to really look hard at the task and the things we're focusing on every day and ask ourselves, is this thing even contributing to the whole purpose of me doing business?
Great question to ask yourself. The last question is: If I complete this task and only this task, am I going to feel accomplished and successful at the end of the day? So when I lay my head down on my pillow at night, am I going to feel that I was successful if I do this task?
And if a task doesn't pass the test, there's three things you can do with it. You can delegate it, you can defer it, or you can delete it or eliminate it.
And you find if you'll do this regularly and get into this habit, then you'll slowly see your productivity increase and you'll slowly see that revenue come in.
Okay. Second method is using what is called the yes - no formula. You may have heard of this. It's basically just a way of deciding what you should say yes to and what you should say no to. And a good way of framing this is ask yourself the question. If I say yes to this thing, or if I do this thing, what am I saying no to?
For example, if you say yes to a last minute client meeting, it might mean saying no to dinner with your family or time with your family. And a lot of times that's tough in the long run, right? It’s more valuable to you. Another example: saying yes to helping a friend with their business might mean saying no to progress in your own business and a decrease in revenue.
So really try to question the things that you're saying yes to and frame it in the way of what am I saying no to?
And just insert to here because it's related. I offer a free mini course to anyone listening called Escape Business Overwhelm: Plan Your Optimal Week in 15 Minutes. It's a super, super short, easy course that literally takes 15 minutes. And it'll teach you some of the core stuff that I'm teaching in the to-do list episode that I did and this prioritization episode.
It distills this down into a really easy 15 minute process. You can follow each week to build out your optimal business week. So you can download that by going to ryanlloyd.com/freecourse.
Okay. And then the third thing I'll talk about today with prioritization is planning for growth, not just urgency when you're prioritizing things.
So many business owners spend all their time putting out fires instead of working on long term growth. You're sucked into the day to day. Instead of working on strategy for long term growth where you want to take your business.
So some things you can do to kind of get into this more effective mindset. Number one, block out two hours every week for brainstorming, strategic planning or learning new skills. And key to this is you need to protect that time block.
Things will come up that are going to make you want to delete that time block, overwrite it with other things, that kind of stuff. If something does come up, move the time block, but keep it. It's really vital to protect that.
These are things that in the heat of battle, it may seem like, oh yeah, I should do this immediate task rather than that strategic thinking, but I would urge you to avoid this. It is a trap. In the long run, you're going to be happy if you can protect that time.
One good thing to do during this time block is use what's called the 80/20 rule. If you look at your business, it's very likely that 20% of your clients, or 20% of what you're focusing on, is generating 80% of your revenue. And the inverse is also true.
There's probably a small percentage of your clients that are squeaky wheels that are creating 80% of your work. So when you're thinking about this strategic planning and long term vision stuff, you need to really drill down into identifying those groups and then what you can do with your strategic planning is double down on those revenue generators, those clients that are generating 80% of your revenue.
You need to figure out how to get more of those clients. So this is the kind of stuff that's like big picture thinking that you really need to set aside time to think about. Otherwise it's just going to get swallowed up in all the other stuff that you have to do.
Okay, so I'm going to leave you with three action items that you can do right now.
The first is listing out all of your current commitments, business, personal or otherwise, and then take those commitments and you're going to identify at least three things that you can delete or eliminate.
The second thing, for every new opportunity, start asking yourself, what am I saying no to by saying yes to this and just get in that habit this week.
Really easy to implement. Maybe harder said than done, but once you try to get in this habit, it's really going to help you.
Three is: schedule one big picture strategic thinking time block. Where you are going to sit down and you're going to have this creative thinking time and think about how you're going to get your business to the next level. And like I said before, protect that time block.
Don't give in.
Okay. So that's it for prioritization. So prioritization is not just about getting things done. It's about getting the right things done so you can grow your business without sacrificing your personal life and spinning your wheels.
If you found this episode helpful, be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a review and if you're ready to get a simple, effective system in place, check out that free mini course Escape Business Overwhelm: Plan Your Optimal Week in 15 minutes. You can get that at ryanlloyd.com/freecourse. Totally free and a great way to just get started.
Okay, that's it for right now. Until next time, take control of your time, master your productivity, and build the business you've always envisioned. We'll see you.
