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by Ben on April 20, 2012 edit

How To Set Priority Of Work

A major part of becoming an ef f ective worker is to learn how to priorit ise tasks.We’ve all been in situations at work where we have had a lot on our plate – whereit seems like there’s too much work and not enough time to do it in. The bestthing to do in this situation is to determine the priority of work. In this article, Ishare a f ew techniques you can use to work this out.

Know What Your Workload Is

The f irst step to set a priority of work is to actually know what your work is. Itmight seem like a good idea to keep it in your head, but that can cause extrastress and the potential to f orget things is high. I recommend writ ing them down.

Make a list of all the tasks you need to do. List tasks f or the day, the week, and however long into thef uture you’d like to go or that you’re f eeling overwhelmed f or. It doesn’t matter how or where you writethem, as long as it ’s accessible – pen and paper, text f ile, Outlook tasks, Excel f ile, or something else.Writ ing them down is the important step.

Eliminate Unimportant Tasks

So, you now have a list of tasks that need to be done. Great! One way to reduce the amount of tasks to dois to eliminate the unimportant ones. You can eliminate them by either delaying them to another point in t ime(f or example, if you don’t need to make a specif ic phone call f or two weeks, then put it down f or next weekinstead of today). If it ’s not that important to your major tasks, then you might not even need to do it – andcan even cross it of f your list.

If you’ve been keeping lists f or a while, and there’s a task or two that are on the list and haven’t been donef or a while, consider whether it ’s really that important. If it is, keep it, if not, then remove it.

Get The Urgent Tasks Done

The more urgent a task is, the earlier it needs to be done. Sounds self -explanatory, right? What I mean bythis, is that if something needs to be done right now, and something else can wait another hour, then dothe one that’s due f irst. Of course, this will depend on how long each task takes and who is asking f orthem, but it ’s another thing to consider.

Finish Tasks Before They Become Urgent

Even better than the previous step, f inish tasks bef ore they become urgent. If you have a document tof inish bef ore Thursday 5PM, and it ’s Monday now, try to get it done as soon as you can – and don’t start itat Thursday 4PM! This will not only reduce the stress you have on this work, it will also send a goodimpression to other workers and f ree up your t ime to get other tasks done.

Determine The Issuer’s Priority Of Work

A lot of the tasks you receive might be f rom other people asking you to do them. A good way to attach apriority to all of your work is to determine the priority of work f or whoever gave you the task. If it ’ssomething they’re waiting f or right now, then it ’s pretty important. If they can wait a day, or a week f or it,then adjust accordingly. It ’s good to f ind out when they would like it by, as well as when they need it by –

of ten they are two dif f erent t imes.

Think Of The Bigger Picture

It can be hard when you’re getting all your work done to think of the bigger picture. Sometimes when I’vebeen overwhelmed, it ’s helped me to take a step back and think, “What’s the big picture here? Why am Idoing this?” If your role involves system support, thinking of the big picture might make you realise thatresolving a single user ’s problem is more important at the moment than f inding out a better way f or thesystem to perf orm a process – as it may have more impact to the department that they work in.

Determine The Benef it If The Task Is Done

Another way of determining the priority of work is to think of the benef its that completing the task will bring.Will it make lives easier? Will it allow people to make important decisions? Will it improve a system or get aproject back on schedule? This is another f actor to consider which order you do tasks in.

Writ ing the benef it down, or even just giving it a number or rating, will help when comparing tasks.

Determine The Impact If The Task Is Not Done

Similar to the above point, another thing to consider is the impact of the task if it isn’t done. Will a systemexperience more issues? Will a project be delayed? Will another manager have a negative opinion of you oryour team? Will people be relying on the wrong inf ormation to make decisions? Will money be lost? Theseare all examples of things to consider as impacts of not perf orming as task, and are important indetermining your priority of work.

How Long Will The Task Take?

The f inal t ip, and possibly the easiest thing to use in determining the priority, is the length of t ime it will taketo actually do the task. Writ ing and sending an important email may take f ive minutes, proof reading a testdocument may take half an hour. You may be able to write that email, get it sent, get it out of the way, andleave yourself f ree to f ocus on reading the document. Alternatively, you may want to read the documentnow, and leave the email f or a t ime when you only have f ive minutes spare.

I hope these tips have helped you consider things you haven’t thought of bef ore, and to help determineyour priority of work. Do you have any other things you consider when determining what to do next? Postthem in the section below!

Image: Rawich / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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