1. What are the highest value tasks before me?
Value is usually more of an emotional call then aught else, especially once beyond the base level of Maslow’s hierarchy. After you have reasonable security re a roof over your head and food on the table, its mainly about your personal value system. Yes, money is easy to quantify but no one really wants little green pieces of paper with pictures of dead white males, we want what we think/hope it will get us: prestige and admiration, security from want, luxury goods galore, awesome experiences, friends. Determining the highest value task requires knowing what YOU value; which in turns suggests a need for self-knowledge and a set of well thought out goals.
2. Which are the easiest for me to do?
Easiest has both a time and energy aspect as well as a motivation component. As the saying goes: “So easy when you want to, so hard when you don’t.” For me, I often follow the “eat the frog first” philosophy as getting the most emotionally toughest or most dreaded/most postponed task done first creates momentum and frees up my mind space.
Closing Quotes:
“The true price of anything you do is the amount of time you exchange for it.” – Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862
“Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.” – Peter Drucker, 1909-2005
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” – Stephen R. Covey, 1932-2012, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier