How to Prioritise

Everyone's got a ToDo list. But I've always found that a long list of things to do (or even a short one) still leaves you agonising over where to start. Typically we use one of these strategies:

Pick off the easiest first
Start with the one at the top and work down
Look for the most urgent and start there
Randomly plunge in and hope you can get them all done
Delegate them and play golf (by far the best strategy, but during the round you'll think of twice as many items to replace them)
Do the one that someone is shouting loudest at you to complete

All reasonable approaches perhaps, but I was taught a more logical way. It uses what's called a UI chart where you decide what's Urgent and what's Important. The method is beautifully simple and can best be performed in an adapted spreadsheet or perhaps on a whiteboard with post-it notes. It's a dynamic process needing regular reviews.

It works like this. Take each item on your To-Do list and place it in one of the four quadrants below according to its urgency and its importance:

The blue box, for 'Urgent and Important' things, is always going to get done first and needs to contain as few items as possible.

Anything in the red 'Not Urgent, Not Important' box should be ignored forever, or at least until items in it are promoted to the Important side of the chart.

The key to the whole method is to concentrate on the Important / Not Urgent green box. Do as many of these as possible before they become Urgent. The objective is to minimise the number of items which end up in the blue box and to distinguish between Important and Not Important activities.

Always do green before orange unless they're quick and easy.

Pass it on.

Comments

Phillips screws - yes I'm angry about them too

Don't get me wrong. They're a brilliant invention to assist automation and prevent screwdrivers from slipping off screw heads - damaging furniture, paintwork and fingers in the process. Interestingly they weren't invented by Mr Phillips at all, but by a John P Thompson who sold Mr P the idea after failing to commercialise it. Mr P, on the otherhand, quickly succeeded where Mr T had failed. Incredible isn't it. You don't just need a good idea, you need a great salesman and, more importantly, perfect timing to make a success out of something new. Actually, it would seem, he did two clever things (apart from buying the rights). He gave the invention to GM to trial. No-brainer #1. After it was adopted by the great GM, instead of trying to become their sole supplier of Phillips screws, he sold licenses to every other screw manufacturer in the world. A little of a lot is worth a great deal more than a lot of a little + vulnerability (watch out Apple!). My gromble is abo

Would we pay more for their stuff?

I'm confused. Brexiters argue the Germans, Italians and French will still want to sell us their cars, so continued free trade with the UK is in their best interests. But we'll have to negotiate this (with an EU unwilling to make leaving easy) by threatening to make their cars more expensive for British people to buy. We'll do this because WE need to make imports more expensive to try to restore our balance of payments. Are Brits prepared to pay more for their Audis, Fiats and Renaults in order to make British cars more appealing, or do Brexiters want to pay more in order to punish them for taxing our insurance and banking products? Either way, imports will cost more. While in the EU, we buy their cars because we like the choice and don't want our own government to tax them. Indeed it would be better for British car manufacturing if we went back to the good old days of being encouraged to buy cheaper British cars (made by foreign owned factories). Is that what Brexite

Grombles

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