The frequently cited research of Robert Kaplan and David Norton shows that more than 90% of employees don’t fully understand their company’s strategy or know what’s expected of them to help achieve company goals. Prioritizing work can be frustrating, especially if you work for a hands-off manager or a company that doesn’t give you clear goals
Take Ownership
Check your mindset when it comes to setting priorities
- Don’t assume that prioritizing your workload is someone else’s job
- Recognize that consciously setting priorities is a key pillar of success
- Assess how well you’re handling the increased workload
Operationalize and Flag Priorities in Your Calendar
Look back on your calendar over the last month to see how much time you allocated across the four quadrants
- Flag all QI priorities and give yourself a little extra preparation time on them
- Take ownership and reclaim decision-making power over where you can best spend your time and energy
Filter Priorities
Consider your role today and answer the following questions: What is my highest contribution, what am I passionate about, and what brings me inspiration
- This can help the brain to manage information overload
- Two criteria I use with clients to filter for priorities
- contribution and passion
Determine Next Steps with an Organizing Framework
Put the two criteria of contribution and passion together to create an organizing framework
- Quadrant I: Prioritize those areas of your job that hit this sweet-spot intersection of bringing your highest value-add and making an impact that you feel excited about
- Tolerate those parts of the role that are important but drain your energy when you’re engaging in them
- Accept that you aren’t going to love every part of the job
- Elevate those tasks that give you a lot of energy but that others don’t see as the best use of your time
- Delegate the daily churn of low-value and low-energy-producing activities, emails, and meetings
- Eliminate those tasks altogether
