Prioritization: Essential in meeting
deadlines
It is not once or twice in the course
of our work that we
have to meet deadlines. They crop up
all the time. That is
ok enough it is only that when we
approach the deadline everything
goes haywire and there is a mess
everywhere. The things we do
daily are thrown completely off gear and
meeting the deadline
becomes a big head ache. Is there any way out of this? Of course
there is. For one
thing, if we are well organized and an
urgent matter crops up, there is
nothing to sweat about. All we have to
do is deal with the situation and move
on..
Easy enough it sounds! But in real
life there are hundreds of other things
that need doing. An urgent matter
cropping up will disrupt our sense of
order and throw us off for the whole day. Then what do we
do? The only way out seems to be
having to work extra hours.
But another alternative is to
prioritize. See whether you
can arrange your work in such away that
you get to do the more
important tasks first. If there is some
daily work that doesn’t call
for too much urgency, keep it aside.
Concentrate on the more
important tasks. Make sure you have a
To-Do List. Number your list in the
order of importance. When something new
comes up, you can see at a glance what
tasks can be moved to tomorrow's to do
list. While you are working there
may be a thousand and one
distractions at your work place or
office.
You will have to decide which is more
important, attending
to those distractions or focusing on
your work.
Hint: You will enjoy your social life
much more if you know you have left no
task undone at work. Prioritize and
Delegate It is not necessary that you do all the
jobs yourself. If you
have good help, trust them with some of
your jobs. The word
is ‘delegate’. Delegation can be the best time
saver.
The three advantages of delegating are:
- Delegating gives us more time to
concentrate on more important issues.
- Delegating is a very good method
of
giving practical training in the real situation to our
staff or children.
- It is a good method of fostering
decision making among subordinates.
But at the same time all tasks cannot be
delegated. There are certain criteria to be taken into
consideration before delegating a task. The criteria for deciding whether a task
can be delegated are:
- If the task is repetitive, by all
means delegate.
- If the decision can be reversed
quickly and easily, it is safe to delegate. For example if is
rearranging the furniture or deciding on
the Christmas celebrations at the office, then it is
quite safe to delegate.
- Check and see if the impact is not
too much on others in case the decision is wrong
- Check and see if there is too much
money or physical resources involved in the
decision.
If you prioritize you can
decide which jobs should be done first, who should do it
and what should be done when. Before you know it, meeting
deadlines will stop being such a headache. |
