How to prioritise at work

Are you in a situation where your work keeps piling up and you struggle with prioritising on what to do first? This might be overwhelming up to the point when you keep pushing off any kind of work that could otherwise be done quite quickly. 

If you don’t know where to start here are simple tips from us on how to prioritise in order to be more effective and get the work done. 

Divide your tasks according to their level of importance

On your to-do list split your tasks on what needs to be done now and what will take more time. Do the tasks that will take less than 15 minutes first such as replying to an email, scheduling a meeting with a client, go through your inbox to check for urgent emails. 

Schedule a time each day for when you want to do these quick tasks based on your preference. Best thing to do is to try to fit it in the morning hours so you can be sure you did not miss out on any important deadline or pressing email. If you easily lose your focus or are prone to procrastination and tend to interrupt your work with scrolling on your apps, you can use AppBlock feature Scheduled blocking and pre-schedule the blocking for disruptive apps for selected days and time slots.

If you are not a friend of strict schedules and you tend to work randomly or do work sprints you can use the Quick Block tool to do this.

Keep up with your clients and colleagues

Communicate with your clients and/or colleagues regularly. Schedule calls or meetings on a weekly basis to find out if there are not any new pressing issues that need addressing before other tasks that you are working on. In order to make things more effective try shared calendars or other online tools to see what the other people are currently working on.

Make sure you do not forget about your long-term projects

If your work includes working on long-term projects make sure you are spending enough time on them throughout your work week. Move onto them after you are done with your daily quick tasks and operations or clear one workday just for them.. In order to keep track of your progress you can try to implement using some online tool to easily manage it and check on your progress. If working with the team do not forget to share your updates and make sure none of you is behind the schedule. 

Set reminders and mark important deadlines in your calendar

This can be done in an old-school paper way, or using your smart devices and online calendar. For reminders, there is no better thing than a simple sticky note. One downside of a sticky note is that they get lost easily. For that reason it is also great to put your reminders to your phone so you can get notification ahead of the tasks deadline.