In my latest Smart Lemming Rundown podcast, I discuss how much I love a new tool that I discovered in the book, Passion at Work.
I have seven projects that I spend my time on. I found myself feeling randomized, since I didn’t the structure I was looking for.
What should I work on Saturdays and Sundays? What’s job number one during the work week? Does family trump everything else? I needed answers, so I could be more productive.
Over the weekend, I created a simple spreadsheet by adding my projects and family in the row and column headings. Using 1 for priority and 0 for not a priority, I was able to identify how I should allocate my time.
After reviewing my matrix, I learned the following order of my priorities:
- Family (7 points): I’ll have a weekly commitment from Thursday night to Saturday morning, starting this week. This ranks higher than anything else on my list.
- Project 1 (6 points): my top priority project that I’ll work on workdays until I’m comfortable with the results I’m expecting over the next 90-days. I’m managing the project in my 90-Day action plan template.
- Stakeout Podcast (4 points): a weekly podcast with Sarah that we now record on Fridays.
- Project 2 (3 points): my second top priority in work, but ranks below the commitment I made to Sarah.
- Rundown Podcast (3 points): this podcast feels like a higher priority until I saw the results in my matrix. Actually, it doesn’t conflict with my other projects since I think about the content in advance and record the podcast on Saturdays.
- Smart Lemming Blog (2 points): I’m limiting my content to only Smart Lemming Diary and podcast posts for now. My project #2 is related to this type of content, so I needed to allocate less time to the blog itself.
- Personal Blog (1 point): I have my Dance Mix series that are quick posts, acting as my creative outlet (and is an excuse to listen to my old dance music). I’m trying to move this blogging to the weekends or evenings so it doesn’t conflict with Projects 1 & 2.
- Podcast #3? (0 points): I’m considering another podcast, but we don’t have the bandwidth until after mid-February. I’m taking a wait and see approach on this priority.
Are you having the same problem that I am in prioritizing my time on too many projects? Then try this spreadsheet; it’s easy to create and kind of fun to do. Use the Data Filter so you can sort the Priorities column from largest to smallest to discover your ranking order of priorities.
I recommend that you take the Passion Work’s advice and identify three action items for each priority so you can schedule your time and monitor for results.
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