Post by moon125 on Nov 5, 2024 2:16:24 GMT -5
Teams that do not have a clear work plan and an understanding of the urgency and importance of each task tend to focus on secondary matters. As a result, they get tired even before they have started the “hot” task. This causes overtime, stress, and missed deadlines, and also has a negative impact on the quality of the result, the number of errors, customer satisfaction, etc. Correct prioritization helps to avoid this. In this article, we share 5 prioritization methods, knowing which a manager can help employees separate the main thing from the secondary.
Prioritization Methods
Eisenhower Matrix
The 34th President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, was forced to decide daily what he needed to do from an endless list of tasks. As a result, he proposed dividing tasks into four categories according to their importance and urgency. This is how the world-famous Eisenhower matrix appeared, which consists of the following groups:
Important and urgent tasks — do them right away. For example, tasks with a burning deadline, consequences of force majeure, what needs to be done on the same day.
Important but not urgent - schedule and schedule. These include tasks that need to be put on the calendar (strategic planning, creating a new project, etc.). They do not necessarily have a deadline.
Urgent but unimportant - delegate if possible. Routine tasks not related to personal goals, but the result of which is important for others - filling out documents, participating in meetings, discussing not very important projects.
Unimportant and non-urgent — remove from the list shopify website design or postpone for later. This is everything that prevents you from doing things from groups 1 and 2 — reading news not related to work, empty conversations with colleagues, scrolling through social networks, organizing files on the desktop.
Eisenhower Matrix
Eisenhower Matrix
When making lists, it is advisable to limit yourself to 8 tasks in each group. Before adding another one, you need to complete the most important item from the existing ones.
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ABCDE Method
The ABCDE method is similar to the Eisenhower matrix, with the difference that it does not require dividing tasks by urgency. It was developed by Brian Tracy, a Canadian-American expert in the psychology of success and a motivational speaker. This method is suitable in cases where tasks have no deadlines or they are of equal importance.
Tracy suggested dividing tasks into the following categories:
A — very important. Tasks that are mandatory and have serious consequences ( meeting with a key client, developing a strategy, reporting to the board of directors ). If there are several such tasks, they are assigned numbers: A-1, A-2, etc.
B — Important, but not critical. The consequences of these tasks are not as serious as in category A. For example, if you do not respond to an email immediately or ignore it altogether, nothing bad will happen.
C — desirable to do. These are things from the category of "have lunch with colleagues" — they do not affect anything.
D — delegate. This includes all routine work that can be delegated to free up resources for category A and B tasks.
E — exclude. Tasks that only take up time and do not bring you closer to your goal. They can be crossed out.
Read also
"How to delegate work tasks as a manager"
Read more
The Ivy Lee Method
Ivy Lee, an American journalist and the founder of PR, proposed his own way of ranking tasks at the beginning of the 20th century. Its essence is to plan no more than 6 tasks per day. This is what the process of prioritizing tasks looks like:
make a list of tasks for the next day;
rank them according to their importance;
In the morning, start working with the first task and only after completing it, move on to the second;
carry over unfinished business to the next day;
Repeat this process every working day.
The method helps to focus on key tasks and act consistently. In addition, the limitation of 6 points helps to avoid overload.
Prioritization Methods
Eisenhower Matrix
The 34th President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, was forced to decide daily what he needed to do from an endless list of tasks. As a result, he proposed dividing tasks into four categories according to their importance and urgency. This is how the world-famous Eisenhower matrix appeared, which consists of the following groups:
Important and urgent tasks — do them right away. For example, tasks with a burning deadline, consequences of force majeure, what needs to be done on the same day.
Important but not urgent - schedule and schedule. These include tasks that need to be put on the calendar (strategic planning, creating a new project, etc.). They do not necessarily have a deadline.
Urgent but unimportant - delegate if possible. Routine tasks not related to personal goals, but the result of which is important for others - filling out documents, participating in meetings, discussing not very important projects.
Unimportant and non-urgent — remove from the list shopify website design or postpone for later. This is everything that prevents you from doing things from groups 1 and 2 — reading news not related to work, empty conversations with colleagues, scrolling through social networks, organizing files on the desktop.
Eisenhower Matrix
Eisenhower Matrix
When making lists, it is advisable to limit yourself to 8 tasks in each group. Before adding another one, you need to complete the most important item from the existing ones.
survey platform
Find out the opinion
of employees
Just!
ABCDE Method
The ABCDE method is similar to the Eisenhower matrix, with the difference that it does not require dividing tasks by urgency. It was developed by Brian Tracy, a Canadian-American expert in the psychology of success and a motivational speaker. This method is suitable in cases where tasks have no deadlines or they are of equal importance.
Tracy suggested dividing tasks into the following categories:
A — very important. Tasks that are mandatory and have serious consequences ( meeting with a key client, developing a strategy, reporting to the board of directors ). If there are several such tasks, they are assigned numbers: A-1, A-2, etc.
B — Important, but not critical. The consequences of these tasks are not as serious as in category A. For example, if you do not respond to an email immediately or ignore it altogether, nothing bad will happen.
C — desirable to do. These are things from the category of "have lunch with colleagues" — they do not affect anything.
D — delegate. This includes all routine work that can be delegated to free up resources for category A and B tasks.
E — exclude. Tasks that only take up time and do not bring you closer to your goal. They can be crossed out.
Read also
"How to delegate work tasks as a manager"
Read more
The Ivy Lee Method
Ivy Lee, an American journalist and the founder of PR, proposed his own way of ranking tasks at the beginning of the 20th century. Its essence is to plan no more than 6 tasks per day. This is what the process of prioritizing tasks looks like:
make a list of tasks for the next day;
rank them according to their importance;
In the morning, start working with the first task and only after completing it, move on to the second;
carry over unfinished business to the next day;
Repeat this process every working day.
The method helps to focus on key tasks and act consistently. In addition, the limitation of 6 points helps to avoid overload.