How Defining Your Fear Helps You Prioritize Tasks With Confidence
Even the savviest entrepreneurs struggle with prioritization skills. Face your fears by first defining them.
This expert opinion by Rashelle Isip, productivity consultant and time management coach at The Order Expert, was originally published on Inc.com.
Ask any entrepreneur to define fear and they will most likely describe it as a feeling that helps them to grow their business and themselves. However, there’s one area where you may be inadvertently holding yourself back in the fear department: being confident making productivity-based decisions.
In my work as productivity coach, I see even the savviest entrepreneurs struggle with prioritization skills. Fortunately, the process of prioritizing tasks, to-dos, and assignments need not be stressful. When you define your fear and practice prioritization, you’ll find it gets easier. Here’s a handy guide to help you identify what may be lurking underneath those swirling, unhelpful, prioritization-based fears, as well as what you can do about it.
“I’m afraid of making the wrong choice.”
Unfortunately, there’s no prioritization silver bullet, especially when it comes to defining your fear. The only way to prioritize items is to actually do them. Remember, no one has a crystal ball. No one knows exactly what the future holds. Everyone is working with the information that’s available to them, right here, right now. And that’s exactly what you can use to your advantage.
How to deal with it: Gather all relevant information needed to prioritize tasks. Consider timelines, deliverables, resources, updates, materials, key stakeholders, and any other relevant details or considerations. Then, make your choice with confidence. Remember, should something not go exactly to plan, you can always course correct with that new information. Any decision you make now gives you key learnings for the future.
“I’m afraid of ignoring other areas of my business.”
This also falls under the “I’m afraid of making a choice” umbrella but is more nuanced. Obviously, everything in your business is important. All the different pieces—from sales and operations to human resources and finance—influence one another. However, you also need to accept the fact that you can’t do everything at once. When you define this fear for what it is, you can make progress in ways you had not previously considered.
How to deal with it: Using a tool like the Eisenhower Box or a Decision Matrix can help you better understand the timeliness of your priorities. How urgent and important are your priorities in relationship to one another? Assign priority levels to tasks as necessary. Just because you’re not working on a task right now doesn’t mean you won’t do it in the future.
“I’m afraid of feeling overwhelmed.”
The thought of prioritizing tasks can sometimes be overwhelming. There are so many items from which to choose, so what do you focus your attention on first? Define the fear in a thoughtful way. You can look at it in this way: You didn’t build your business in one day. You did it one day at a time, and you’ll do the same when prioritizing tasks.
How to deal with it: Take five minutes to regroup and calm your thoughts. Identify a project you’re currently working on. Next, identify a task that needs to be done today, tomorrow, and the day after. When you break down prioritization into smaller parts, it becomes more manageable. Best of all, the process allows you to gain a better sense of where you are spatially with your work.
“I’m afraid I have no time in my calendar to prioritize.”
This statement is similar to “I’m afraid of feeling overwhelmed.” It’s an avoidance technique that will set your schedule back further. So, define your fear. If you have time to decide what you’ll have for lunch today, then you have time to prioritize. The process need not be an hours-long event that takes up your entire day.
How to deal with it: Schedule at least 15 minutes to prioritize tasks every morning in your work calendar. If it’s already later in the day, set a timer for yourself for 10 minutes to identify your top tasks for the remainder of the day. Another approach is to simply swap out a time-sucking activity, like aimlessly scrolling through social media. And just like that, you’ve freed up time to prioritize your work.
