Monday, January 10, 2011

8 Simple Steps to Setting Your Priorities in Life

Setting priorities is very important to having an efficient life, but it doesn’t always have to be difficult. When you take the time to set your priorities, you’re more likely to reach your goals and reach them faster. Who wouldn’t want that?

You can learn how to set priorities by following the steps below. While you might not want to follow all of them exactly as they’re stated here, you should come away with a better idea on how you should personally start to set your priorities.

Try these simple steps:

1. Determine Your Goals. The first thing to consider when you’re learning how to set priorities is to determine what your goals and priorities are. You might have big ones and small ones, and you may have one goal or many goals. You just need to figure out what they are and write them down if that helps you. It’s the first step just because you can’t set your priorities without knowing what you want to achieve in the first place.

2. Get Clear. Once you’ve decided on your goals and priorities, work on their clarity. State them as simply as you can. While you don’t want to leave out details, you also don’t want to be too wordy and confuse yourself in the future.

3. Learn How to Balance. Chances are that you’ve got many different goals and priorities. Learning how to balance them all is just a part of life. If you pay too much attention to one priority, your others may begin to suffer. Strive to be aware of your priorities at all times. At the end of the day or week it’ll help to evaluate how things are going for you. If something is lacking, you can tweak your schedule to make a change.

4. Get Organized. Organization is also key when you’re learning how to set priorities. There are different organizational styles that you can adopt. It doesn’t really matter what you choose as long as you’re not just leaving things up to chance. With organizational skills comes efficiency. You can eventually learn how to do more with less time, which will allow you to get to more of your priorities.

5. Realize that You Can’t Do Everything. After you get organized with your priority lists, you might be tempted to have your attention on too many things at once. You need to realize that there are only 24 hours in a day. There are things you wanted to accomplish that you won’t be able to just yet. Schedule it for another day and don’t sweat it.

6. Keep Your Focus. Strive to remain focused on your priorities. Everyone’s mind begins to stray every now and then, which is okay sometimes. But you don’t want to allow procrastination to creep up on you. Keep your eyes on your priorities.

7. Keep Your Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is very important to setting priorities. If you’re not jazzed up about your goals, you may end up losing interest. Achieving priorities and goals is very difficult without a decent dose of enthusiasm. You can keep it up by remembering what’s really important to you. If you’re working towards a specific goal, keep in mind how great you’ll feel once you achieve success.

8. Reward Yourself. It’s important to reward yourself for setting priorities and following through. If you’ve made an achievement towards a priority or goal, don’t just cross it off your list and move on to the next thing. Take some time out to reward yourself for a job well done. You deserve it!

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