Have you heard of the 80/20 rule? If you haven’t it’s a principle that states 80% of your outcome come from 20% of your input. In other words, 20% of your time spent on working produces 80% of your results. Research shows the most productive time of the day is between 8am and 2pm. Which means we want you spending your best hours of the day working on tasks that actually move your business forward. Let’s walk through a simple process that we use when we need to quickly prioritize work.

Step 1

Write down (if you haven’t already) your current task list. Make sure it includes everything you need to do for the day or week.

For any task that takes less than 2 minutes, do it right now. This should clear up your task list quite a bit. In David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, he talks about how we as humans like to procrastinate and put off tasks, which add up and clutter our mind.

Step 2

The next step is to prioritize items that make the most impact. Quickly go through and highlight the one to two tasks you want to finish for the day and start working on those first. Once you complete those, you can move on to other tasks.

Repeat these two steps in a cycle and you’ll be surprised how much more you’re able to get done.

Wrap Up

If you’re overwhelmed and have a ton of work to do, follow this two step process to quickly prioritize your work to get the most results. If you have any quick tips for prioritizing work, share them in the comments section below!