Hello! I’m Rachel, a professional and a business owner. I’m also a woman that has been driven to create my own path and so much more. I’m here to share with you my tips on planning, prioritization and focus. Through my journey I have identified the practices and habits that are necessary to gain momentum. They have taken me in the direction I want to go and now I’m here to share it with you. I’ll be sharing my own experience with results focused coaching and consulting in order to empower other Moms. If you’re looking to carve your own path, I can’t wait to dive in with you.
How do We Prioritize when there are a Million Things to do?
As a mom and with my work and business, the to do list is often long and sometimes overwhelming. How do you set your day, your week, and beyond up for success through planning or prioritizing what you want to accomplish? Whether you are going into a week that you know will be extra busy or you are starting a day that feels like it has plenty of cushion for “all the things”, I’ve found it helpful to outline my most important/urgent tasks and you can do this easily as well. I’m going to be outlining how below!
The Power List
Let’s talk about the Power List. A weekly sheet, the “power list” is where you can write your top five items for each day. This practice keeps the tasks in the front of the mind for what you want to accomplish first. It helps us push through to get our tasks done, even when new things come flooding in.
Want to try out the power list? Email me at [email protected] to get yours! You can print out and try it for FREE.
There are days when the list must shift and when not everything gets crossed off. Having the list does create the focus on the critical few rather than the trivial many. When we try to do it all, a couple of things happen. One we get frustrated because we become overwhelmed while we are doing more but finishing less. And two the quality of what we finish is comprised of our efforts being spread across too many things.
How to Prioritize When It Doesn’t Go to Plan
This all may seem easier said than done right? As soon as you start the day, or get rolling with your plan, something pops up that was not on your radar. This is something I work on constantly. Owning a business with some seasonal effect has me switching in between periods of higher and lower activity. In the slower periods, I can utilize the time to work on more futuristic needs.
High activity times are very comparable to when my kids have been involved in two sports at once or just a busy season. During these times the challenge is figuring out what happens next, what happens directly after that and so on. The power list will help set the intention for the day and what I want and need to get accomplished. There are days when things happen that just wipe away the list. It’s okay to have those days. When your kids or family needs you or so many other things, it’s okay to shift from the list.
The list really becomes essential when we need to evaluate tasks and prioritize. Your list can get wiped off because things for later this week keep popping up . . . Or someone else’s non-emergency request just couldn’t get quiet and wait its turn in your mind. This is when the list becomes essential. Having this list and working to stick to it can give you the focus you need to follow through with these most urgent or important to do’s.
Where do we Start?
If you are thinking about getting started with planning your important items for the week you have to know where to start. If you are not even sure what is most urgent or important here’s where to begin. Place all of the things into quadrants in order to sort through and determine what is really important. If there is something that is just driving you crazy (for me the pile of books on the floor I need to donate) then put it as important and knock it off the list and move on. Sometimes important things are first the ones that we need to complete to be able to have a clear enough mind to see what comes next.
Ready to Dig Deeper
If you are ready to go a level deeper on this, I would challenge you to do an exercise on your priorities. I knew 8 months ago that I had priorities, but I had not ever taken a step back and written them down and looked at how my life, my activities, and my focus align with these. I could easily see my schedule for the day and where I was spending my time, but I did not feel the link on a broader scale between what I desired and wanted to do and what I was doing.
I’d encourage you to take some time to reflect on what priorities look like for you. I started with the top three and from there I set up goals that align with what I am working on process (habits/standards daily) and product (results or specific output). This exercise has helped create the intention and focus for those tasks and has really helped with the categorization when I consider what is urgent, what is important, what can be scheduled, and what can be delayed or deleted for now. As said by Stephen Covey “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities”.
Feeling Overwhelmed? Don’t worry!
If any of this feels overwhelming or you are just not sure about getting started, I would love to connect with you. I have experienced all of this myself and now I am ready to be part of your journey with these steps. Perhaps you are in the trenches of something new or making a change and you need to identify how to scope this type of exercise to help that. I would love to connect with you! My experience in my professional industry for 18 years along with my business ventures and entrepreneurial spirit has equipped me to be in a position to help others with this process. I offer results focused coaching for individuals, groups, and businesses. If you are in the midst of a new business, ready for the next level or chapter, or ready for a change personally or professionally let’s talk.
My desire is to take the overwhelming part of the change or growth out of the process. After we identify our priorities, sometimes the best way to begin to address those is with a gap assessment where you look at where you are at today or your business is at vs. where you need/want to be. From there we can create the focus we need on the most important activities, identify goals and the action steps to get to where you want to go.
