Prioritization

One of the key resources which all of us must manage well in order to succeed is "Time". Many complain of not finding time to do all that they want. I say its the problem of prioritization.

We literally waste a lot of valuable time in doing things which might be of low or medium priority and miss out on high priority tasks. Though we know how to classify tasks based on priority, it is better to know a simple and practical way to do the same.

Let me tell you a story which actually happened when I was conducting a placement training in a college for final year engineering students. It was a 12 day long training program without a single day's break in between. It was on one Sunday that I had planned to take presentations from students as a part of the mock selection process. It was made clear earlier that only those who do their presentations will have a chance to get selected for the final mock interview. The next day was GD (group discussion) in which one student performed extremely well. While marking the score for her, I noticed that she was not present the previous day for the presentation. As per the rules set earlier itself, though she was good, she was not selected for the final round of mock interview.

After the entire session, I asked that girl why was she absent for the presentation session. She told that she was busy in preparing for the internship report on that Sunday. Looks like a genuine reason right? When I further probed as to when was the last date of report submission, she said it was after one month. She quickly realized her mistake as soon as I referred to the Prioritization session in Time Management.

The prioritization of activities must be based on two simple factors which are Urgency and Importance. The tasks which are both urgent and important and of high priority and must be done by yourself immediately. The tasks which are urgent but not important and vice versa are the ones with medium priority which can be either delegated to someone or delayed. The tasks which are neither urgent not important are the ones with low priority, which needs to be deleted from our daily routine.

In the case of the girl I was discussing, the activity of preparing the internship report was important but not urgent which could have been delayed. At that point in time, preparing for and presenting in the class was clearly a high priority activity which she actually missed out.

I am sure with the understanding of prioritization you will be able to better manage daily activities and in turn manage the precious resource called "Time".