I often find myself making to do lists. I used to rank each item on my list according to its urgency using the scale of:
I then concentrated on the urgent and high tasks.
I found that there was a problem with this approach. Invariably my list was very long. I felt overwhelmed by it all. How could I possibly complete all these things in my work week?
Often this meant that by the end of the week some of the low priority tasks would remain undone.
By labeling a task as low priority it meant that I regarded it as having no importance. It did not matter if low priority tasks got done or not.
How do you judge whether a task is important or not?
Sometimes tasks can have more importance than you realise. For example, you may have on your list an action to call a client who has not done much business with your company. When you call the client to tell him about a new service your company has to offer, you find out that the service is just what he is looking for. The result: he places a large order with you. If you had labeled the action to call him as low priority, you could have not made the call if you were having a busy week.
There is something called the Butterfly Effect. This, simply stated, says that small, seemingly insignificant actions can sometimes create huge outcomes. Its name comes from the Chaos theory of science that says that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world could effect the weather patterns in such a way as to cause a hurricane thousands of miles away. Sound crazy, but that’s what some scientists speculate.
So, how does the Butterfly Effect work in humans? This can be illustrated by a story.
You arrive at the station to catch your train at the station. The platform is long, and you know that the train due to arrive in 5 minutes has many carriages. You wonder what end of the train you wish to travel in: front, middle or end.
You realise this decision is not really that important, as you do not really care where you sit as long as it is in a comfortable seat. You decide to stand on the middle of the platform but for no particular reason.
The train arrives and is quite busy but you find an empty row and sit there.
At the next station many people get on. A tall woman, seeing that there are no empty rows, sits down next to you.
You get talking her and before you reach you destination you have arranged to meet her in a few days time for a drink. Six months later you are married.
If you had not stood at the middle of the platform and not sat in that particular carriage, would you have met then married that woman?
What this story illustrates is how the outcome of seemingly low priority actions can be unpredictable.
How many opportunities have you missed because you neglected a low priority action?
Armed with this knowledge, how do you create enough time so that all your actions that need doing in a week are completed? First, don’t label any action by priority, unless it is absolutely vital that it be done straight away. You then need to find some way to organise the way you work that results in you being more productive, that is, get more things done in less time, and complete all your planned actions.
The only method I know of doing this is Getting Things Done a system created by David Allen. Put GTD and David Allen in Google to find out more.
