Setting priorities eases the mind and simplifies life. So we can focus on what really matters. We know all this. Yet, when we face a new day, unexpected events and emergencies hit us with all their strength, making us forget our priorities. So we end up submerged in a tangle of small irrelevant problems that become black holes that suck up our time and energy.
We must learn to prioritize. We know it. But how do you set priorities when everything seems urgent? How to prioritize when the world pushes us in another direction? How to stay on course if all the unexpected presents itself as a matter of life and death?
How to prioritize when everything is urgent?
For people who are very picky about themselves and for those who have difficulty delegating, the “default option” is usually to take charge of everything. Prioritize everything. Obviously, it’s a bad choice because exhaustion will end up knocking on our door sooner or later.
However, in a fast-paced world where everything seems urgent – but few things really are – learning to avoid chaos and give each task the relevance it deserves is an essential skill if we don’t want to end up overwhelmed, stressed and frustrated.
• Assume that we don’t have to be able to do everything
We live in the society of tiredness , basically because each of us carries his own “forced labor camp”, to paraphrase the philosopher Byung-Chul Han. We exploit ourselves by believing that we are realizing ourselves, but in reality we only manage to push ourselves to the limit, physically and mentally.
Sure, overloading ourselves with activities can make us feel like superheroes. The idea of making it with everything sounds good. But it’s not sustainable in the long run. Therefore, the first step in prioritizing is to stop placing so much demands on ourselves and to recognize that we can’t do everything, and we don’t even have to. It means admitting that we are human and that many of the tasks we perform on a daily basis probably don’t contribute to our well-being.
• Develop a global vision
Uncertainty has long since taken root in our lives. And it is likely that she will be our traveling companion for a long time to come. Because of the uncertainty, what’s important today may be irrelevant tomorrow. Therefore, it is worth recognizing that we often lack a broad and long-term perspective.
If we look at just one thing, blinded by current circumstances, we are likely to give it more importance than it deserves. To escape this trap, the key is relativity. Look around us. Try to see things from a broader perspective. We must not focus only on what is happening now, but look beyond. How important will that activity be in an hour, tomorrow, or next week? Or also: how important is it in our life project?
• Distinguish what is urgent from what has priority
Caught up in the dizzying pace of daily life, it’s easy to end up confusing what’s urgent with what’s important and setting the wrong priorities. Therefore, it pays to always keep in mind the things that are really important in life and that need to be prioritized.
The word urgent comes from the Latin urgens or urgentis , so it refers to what stimulates or causes haste. However, anything we care about – or anything we’re told is urgent – isn’t necessarily important and, of course, we shouldn’t prioritize it. Making a list of really important things and prioritizing them will allow us to compare them with the urgent ones and quickly decide what level of priority we can give them in our lives.
• Consider other possibilities than “yes” and “no”
One of the main problems when it comes to setting priorities is that it is very difficult to say no. Of course, it’s difficult to say no to the people we love or to our superiors, but we must not forget that between the “yes” and the “no” there is a wide range of possibilities.
“Yes” is the most appropriate response when something is obviously urgent, important, and a priority. “No” is the answer to all those tasks that don’t correspond to us, aren’t important or with which we simply don’t want to compromise ourselves because they don’t fit into our priorities.
But there are other alternatives we could consider:
1. Procrastinate. They are those tasks that we could perform, but not immediately. It is therefore sufficient to explain to the person that we would like to take charge of the thing, but that at this moment we cannot. Instead, we can tell him when we’ll be available.
2. Collaborate. They are those tasks that we are not willing to take on entirely, but to which we can contribute. In these cases it is enough to explain that we are happy to help, as long as the other person cooperates.
3. Workaround. They are those tasks that we cannot take on in any way, but we can contribute in some way to their solution, for example by recommending an expert or a software that can do part of the job.
Finally, we must keep in mind that the people around us may not be fully aware of the effort we are making. After all, it’s easy to swim out of the water. Therefore, it is likely that we must “educate” them too, especially if we have always been available to them and it has always been difficult for us to say no.