Priorities

It’s Thursday already. The week has been flying past and I have been busy – I know I have been busy but there is a growing list of to-dos on my right side and I seem to not even notice the light anymore.

It’s Thursday and I need to prioritise!

Today I thought it’s time to revisit the timetable I had originally planned to keep updating and working as efficiently as possible.

I know that there are plenty of people working desperately hard to make something or create something, others who are equally working hard just for a meal and yet here I am talking about how busy things are for me. Silly when comparing it to the world.

But…

The world is not here in my room right now, there is no rush and no one is standing over me, only the thoughts in my head are keeping my actions focussed and with each keystroke I am completing a little more towards my goal.

Priorities have a different side though. They weigh heavy on my thoughts because at times I need to select what I feel is more important to be working on in that moment than at other times. This results in one definite action, Making a Choice!

When mentioning priorities you are also mentioning choice and be as it may a choice to do one thing over another, you are still choosing to do that thing.

Over the past few weeks since my last post I have been working on finishing my first ebook. It is complete I am proud to say and the cover is finalised.

I wanted to know how to publish it, who would be the one to review it, could I do it all? I spent further time researching how to become a publisher and having found a way decided I would publish the book under my own company department name – Crafted Creed Press.

Book written, publishing house sorted, now for legal requirements… Sorted those with a day out and about, but getting home, I had again neglected to complete any of the work I had intended for that week!

Then I realised I needed to sort my bookkeeping out, further learning and then the actual doing and I was really trying to keep pressing on with the National Parks Guy website/blog to keep on target of categorising all the national parks in the world in one place.

Priorities then, have led to a situation where I am now a few weeks behind on my Latent Lifestyle posts and the writing for the second book has been halted for a couple of weeks.

It sounds funny to read the above, but put down in text really clears up to me the need to be ordered and focussed in what I do. To prioritise the work load and when working on different projects, ensure that each piece is being carefully attended too as you would a garden.

I enjoy watching the seasons pass through a garden, how the garden responds and plants survive. It is fascinating to see how something as small as a colourful flower can cause so much fuss to the bees, which incidentally come from far and wide.

If I was to stop attending to the garden then other plants will take over. Weeds (although they are just more hardy plants) will grow and strangle the life out of the weaker plants. It requires careful management – and herein lies the lesson.

Priorities!

If I try to attend to the whole garden at once, it will be doomed before I start. A garden cannot have all its minerals, compost and weeding done in one day and then left. Plants like to be given food intermittently and over time.

The grass that grows so well, needs to be trimmed before it takes over the whole space and the leaves will fall and need to be picked up or at least moved off of areas that will kill other plants nearby.

To be able to prioritise effectively there needs to be time dedicated to working on what is important, but as I learned through the bookkeeping lecture, knowing when things are going to happen allows you time to sort something out before they happen.

In other words, if i need to write, blog, build a website, travel and prepare a podcast – I cannot do it all in a day! But I can do parts of it in a day and keep adding to it over the week.

To prioritise is not to tie yourself up in bureaucracy but to alleviate the stress and pressure of missing something because a more urgent “priority” needs your attention!

David Allen, of Getting Things Done, mentions a great technique for staying on top of your commitments. At the end of each day/week get up early in the morning and go through all the items you have done, still need to do and check what is still up and coming.

That way you are prepared to prioritise for the next day/week ahead. You know whats coming, and if something new appears, you can slot it in knowing what is required for the day/week ahead.

Making a choice to be more organised is to prioritise!

Try to gather all your ideas, to-dos and up and comings in one place and then sit and organise it all. When will you go and do your food shopping, what clothes do you have in mind for the party you are attending to and when do you need to call your friend to have a catchup.

Prioritising is not being bureaucratic, it is being ordered enough to go out and enjoy a night off knowing that you planned for it. It is sleeping at night knowing you achieved what you set yourself to do that day.

If anything prioritising is prior organisation to achieve the best outcome for your time that you can.