How To Prioritize Tasks In My Business (GET THINGS DONE!)

Are you completely overwhelmed by your to do list every day? Paralyzed into inaction because you don't know where to start on projects and the tasks that you need to get done first?

By the end of this video, you'll have a foolproof approach to effectively prioritizing your daily to do list to make the biggest impact with the time that you have for the best entrepreneurship business strategy and systems advice.

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This process I'm about to show you is the exact same process I use to launch my business while still working a 9-5 job and continue to use while my business grows. It's the same process that I teach my clients who have million dollar businesses so they can get the most done with the time that they have. All right. Let's dive in.

The first thing I want you to do is to grab your to do list.

I have a weekly to do list because I usually plan my tasks on a week by week basis based on my quarterly action plan, but if you're operating day to day, that is totally okay too.

The next thing I do is at the top of the list I write how much time I will have in that day or week to complete all my tasks.

Say you work a 40 hour week minus meetings and lunch and all that. Usually I'm at around 30 hours of get stuff done time each week, give or take. Then next to each task I write down approximately how much time I think it'll take me to complete that task.

So if you're just starting to learn how to estimate time, this can be somewhat tricky, but the better you get at it, the better it's going to be to help with your task prioritization.

I also ask myself, is there anything that I can delegate? Is there anything that should be delegated? If I answer yes to either of those questions, make sure you pass it on to someone else and take it off your to do list.

Then I take my list and I pull out my handy effort impact matrix.

So what is this matrix? It will help you sort your tasks in a way that helps you get the most done with the least amount of time.

Now, many people show and use this matrix as a four box, but I actually use it as a nine box scale. Why? Because it gives you even more clarity and helps segment and prioritize even more quickly and efficiently.

On the bottom of this chart is your effort scale low, medium, and high. Now this is where your time estimations come in super handy. My general rule of thumb is 15 minutes or under is a low effort. 15 minutes to 90 minutes is a medium effort and anything above 90 minutes to complete is a high effort.

Now if there's a task that involves multiple people or rounds of review or some other complexity that might delay how quickly it gets done. I might move it up a level in effort because it requires a little bit more back and forth which could take more time.

On the side of the chart is the impact scale. Also low, medium and high. High impact is anything that directly impacts revenue like a lunch, fixing a broken checkout page, designing a new product or upsell, et cetera. I also put domino tasks in this high impact column and domino tasks are the tasks that when completed, remove the bottleneck for my team or me to get a bunch of other tasks done. So for example, if I'm planning a launch, completing a launch brief for my team gives them all the details they need to go off and running on their tasks.

Medium impact tasks are things that indirectly impact revenue or things that help the business and or the team do their projects much more easily and efficiently. Brand building activities, executing the content calendar, optimizing systems, processes, reporting, et cetera, and low impact tasks are the things that have very little or no effect on revenue or helping the team do things better or faster.

When I try to explain low impact activities in a business, I always use the example of like a typo on a thank you page. Is it annoying? Heck yeah. Will the business suffer if this doesn't get fixed? No.

All right, now start putting all your tasks into this matrix. Pause this video if you need a minute done. Okay, good.

Comment below and let me know some of the high impact tasks that are currently on your to do list.

Alright, now that you've sorted all your tasks, now it's time to get them done. The first box to tackle is the high impact low effort. Now on paper or in the back of your mind, take note of how much time you expect to spend on the tasks that fall into this box.

The second box to tackle is the high impact medium effort. Again, take note of how much time you expect to spend on these tasks. Add it to the first, then go through medium impact, low effort, then high impact, high effort and so forth.

Now at some point you'll find that you have run out of available time to complete all the tasks that fall out in that particular box and within that box, whichever one it is, you should prioritize the ones that have a deadline or a time component to them. The rest will have to wait until tomorrow or next week.

The more that you do this, the quicker and easier it will get. I promise you might even be able to do some of the sorting in your head instead of on paper eventually.

Another thing to know is that tasks might shift in importance and impact from week to week or day to day, so something that might've been low impact last week now might become a bottleneck or a hard deadline this week, so it might make sense to move up some squares in your matrix and that is totally fine.

It's just important to make sure that you are being honest with yourself because not everything on your list is high impact. It's easy to get caught up in those thoughts, beliefs, but that's why I go through this process every single week.

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