Prioritization – Permission to Not Finish
In previous blogs I’ve shared recommendations for:
How to prioritize tasks to prevent fire drills
Various techniques for prioritizing work tasks
The benefits of setting priorities
A question that I’ve been asked several times of late is one that I haven’t yet covered, and that is:
After you prioritize everything you need to do for the day, how do you give yourself permission to not finish one of those items?
If you follow the recommendations I gave in the blogs above, you understand how to select your “must-do’s” for the day. But what if someone or something or an unexpected situation throws a wrench into your plans? There’s no way you can now possibly finish what you determined were priorities. You’ve figured out what absolutely needs to get done for the day, but there are a couple of items left that you’d told others you’d complete, but you know you won’t be able to. And now you’re upset because you see yourself has having failed…another unfinished priorities list.
First, you should be commended that you:
*understand how important the commitments you make are.
*realize there has to be a line drawn as to how much you can complete in one day and still be able to function the next.
*weren’t paralyzed by the thought of not finishing everything and were able to triage the priority levels of what remained on your to-do list.
But now you’re disappointed in yourself that you didn’t deliver as promised. Each person as a different reason for why they’re disappointed, upset or [enter your negative emotion here]. Think about what it is that’s causing you to feel this way. When you determine the cause, you can address it directly.
But if you can’t pinpoint the cause, here is a general approach. Ask yourself:
*Did anyone die?
*Did anyone get hurt?
*Did anyone lose custody of their child?
*Did anyone lose possession of their home or vehicle?
*Did anyone get fired?
*Was there a large loss of money?
If the answer was no, then it sounds like a situation in which you need to give yourself permission to be human. That’s right. Not superhuman. Simply, human.
I’ll give you an example. My virtual assistant, Shawn, knew I was supposed to submit my weekly blog to her by the close of business on Wednesday in order to be posted Thursday. I unexpectedly gained a new client (yay!) and needed to get a contract to them ASAP, was hit with an accounting request that absolutely needed to be handled that day, and the conclusion of one of my client appointments wound up adding a stop to my commute home. On top of that, I was less than one week into a new regimen prescribed by my doctor that has added on an average of three hours per day of health-related actions I need to complete. There were other happenings, but the gist is that I didn’t get my blog to Shawn by the deadline and had to let her know that it wouldn’t get to her until much later.
I really was mortified. I missed a deadline, and I despise doing that. I felt like a flake. I dropped the ball. I – of all people – should know better to not put something off until the last minute and to allow extra time in my day to handle the unexpected that crops up.
After awhile of mentally kicking myself, I finally “snapped out of it,” (a la Cher in Moonstruck) by asking myself the questions above. After that, I was able to give myself permission to not feel guilty about not finishing a task. This permission was reinforced by the fact that my brain realized that my productivity level had slowed because of the negative beat-down that was taking place inside my head.
The next time your plans go awry, and you run out of time to work on your prioritized to-do list, take the necessary steps to give yourself that permission to not finish. Doing so will allow your brain to quiet down in the evening, and then kick productivity levels back up the next morning, which will allow you to hit the ground running the next day.
For strategies and tips on how to gain back time when crap derails you, check out The Inefficiency Assassin: Time Management Tactics for Working Smarter, Not Longer
