What I found most difficult in my life was prioritizing what I needed to do because I wanted to do too many things. When I was young, I was pretty bad at prioritizing my tasks. As a result, I ended up quitting many projects I started. For example, I began to draw a picture and started learning a piano music piece. With full-time work or school, I could not take time for both at a time. Sometimes I had to quit one project. At the worst time, I had another urgent project which I needed to do, and I had to stop all other projects. My biggest problem in prioritization was that I often ended up picking a few of among many things. I have so many things I want to do most of the time. Every failed project made me uneasy; however, I ignored the feeling.
There was an event that made me conscious about my priorities when I was at a high school. My friend, whom I had known from elementary school, asked to accompany saxophone music for an event. I knew I was busy, but I agreed to do it. After a few weeks, I resigned due to a time conflict. My friend looked disappointed, although he never blamed me for it. It made me feel awful because he had to search for another piano player. Since the event, I have become very conscious about prioritization. I realized some tasks could potentially impact other people. I decided to work on my problem so that I did not repeat the same mistake.
Despite my efforts, prioritization was more Prioritizationdifficult than I thought. I made a lot of mistakes in how to prioritize my tasks. I am still learning to juggle my schedule. Through trial and error, I got much better at prioritizing my tasks. Over time, I found out there are some tricks in prioritizing what you need to do. Today, I want to write about how I prioritize my tasks.
Prioritizing Tasks
I can categorize my tasks into two types. The first type of task includes things I must do. The rest are tasks I want to do. I could not pack my schedule with only tasks I must do to keep my life more satisfied.
Satisfying basic needs is critical for prioritization. Maslow’s developed a Hierarchy of needs to articulate the five levels: physiological needs, safety and security, love and belonging, and Esteem and self-actualization. The lower on the hierarchy the need lies, the more critical it is to satisfy it. For example, Physiological needs are necessities for us to survive, such as eating, sleeping, etc. Even though I love reading books, I cannot sustain reading books without sleeping or eating.
I must satisfy the tasks to fulfill the following needs:
Absolute Requirements: Eat, Sleep, Exercise
High Priority Tasks: Work so that my family can live safely.
Although, I noticed that I could sacrifice physiological needs for my husband when he was ill.
Satisfying our basic needs is essential; however, that is not good enough. We must fulfill some things that we want to do. We must find the balance between what needs to be done and what we want to do. When we consider tasks that we want to do, we need to consider visions and values closely.
Visions & Values
I think visualizing what do you want to do in the future is like drawing or writing. When I draw a picture, I make multiple drafts even before I start drawing. After the numerous drafts, you can finally begin to remove the image. Envisioning is just like creating a draft. Without the draft, it is harder to draw a correct picture line – the lines are like our goals. The clearer they are, the easier it is to focus and prioritize things to do.
Our vision must be aligned with our values. Values are something we cannot compromise. So, a misaligned vision will make you uneasy and unsatisfying.
I have a friend who went to a veterinary school in Japan. She loves animals. Being a vet does not solely involve playing with animals. Sometimes she may need to put a puppy or a kitty to sleep. She loves animals; however, this is something she could not compromise. So, she became a dog trainer. She makes much less money; however, she is much happier with her life.
When I was younger, I set my vision on climbing the corporate ladder. Therefore, I took on a lot of projects, and I worked a lot of hours. I started realizing that my vision did not align with my values. There are a lot of competitions and political games involved in climbing up the corporate ladder. The higher you go up on a corporate ladder, the more impact you have on others. One day, I created a system that ended up terminating several people’s jobs. Despite my promotion, I felt guilty and unhappy. That was the moment I realized that my vision and values were misaligned. So, I started contemplating what my values were.
Learning
Challenge
Creating
Freedom
Effectiveness
Competition is not my value; therefore, my vision was completely misaligned. After I realized this problem, I felt more relaxed with my life. I specialized in creating better processes at work. My curiosity is not limited to artistic fields such as playing the piano, drawing, reading, or learning something new. I will be satisfied if I can have enough free time to do them.
Our time is scarce. So, we must choose which requirement we want to satisfy– this involves prioritizing your tasks. If I am not careful, I can still overload myself with too many tasks. I feel discomfort from losing control of my time. So, I try to limit the number of tasks so that I have some wiggle time. And therefore, I must prioritize what I need to do.
Prioritizing is essential since our time is limited. It is necessary to distinguish what you need to do and what you want to prioritize tasks. Then it would be best if you considered your vision values. Without vision, you will be unfocused. If your vision is misaligned with your values, you will be dissatisfied with your life.
The better I become at prioritizing my tasks, the more control I gain. Over time, I found out there are some tricks in prioritizing my tasks. I still make many mistakes in prioritizing; although, I try to improve my experience. I hope my experience can help you to prioritize your tasks.