** replace with published episode **
Setting Your Daily Priority
Ask yourself: if you could only accomplish one thing today, what would it be? What one thing is most important to you?
Set your one daily priority, and then fill gaps in your plans with the tasks that aren’t as important.
If your daily priorities are set realistically and intentionally, they will add up to an impressive lifetime of accomplishments!
Yesterday's episode was about creating your lifelong priorities, and I discussed how to set priorities for the long term. Today I want to talk about setting your daily priority in alignment with those lifelong priorities.
Notice that I didn't say, “daily priorities (plural),” and that was on purpose!
Everyone has a list of priorities or tasks that can get very long, but that’s not always helpful for deciding how to spend one given day.
So instead, set your daily priority, that one thing that's most important to you. Let me give you an example:
Maybe you need to figure out where you stand with your IRAs and retirement accounts. With multiple jobs over our careers, we can lose track of our accounts and the big picture. Maybe one of your goals is to organize all of your retirement accounts.
A daily priority might be to get a handle on your current retirement accounts. If it’s on your mind, not making it a priority and getting it taken care of, eats up a significant amount of energy and brainpower! If you set a daily priority and actually do it (or at least get a good start), at the end of the day you can feel accomplished with your progress.
Here's an exercise to think about when you're considering a daily priority:
Imagine that we're in a room together and there's a large mason jar. If you’ve been through a time management program, you’ve probably seen this before; it's used a lot because it really works.
On a table is one big rock that can fit within a mason jar.
There’s a pile of pebbles that are smaller than the big rock.
There's a small pile of sand.
You need to fit all of these items into the jar. What’s your method?
You could start with the pebbles… fill in the gaps with sand… try to fit the big rock on top… but what’s going to happen?
You might not have room for the big rock. Part of it might stick out the top of the jar. Will the pebbles and sand settle in a way that takes up too much space?
So here's the trick: begin with the big rock (your daily priority) and fill in the gaps with the smaller pebbles and sand (the tasks that aren’t nearly as important).
When you identify your big rock for the day, and complete that before tackling your lesser priorities, you’ll be amazed at all you can accomplish!
Resource:
Video: Rocks, Pebbles and Sand: Prioritizing Your Life
Transcript
for a complete episode transcript, please click here