Activity is not necessarily accomplishment. I have said this and taught this so many times throughout the years. People say they are so busy but have nothing to show for it. They wonder where the time goes.
It comes down to priorities, and the discipline of those priorities.
The three Rs are requirement, return, and reward. To be effective, according to John C. Maxwell, leaders should order their lives according to these three questions:
1 – What is required?
The first thing to prioritize is what is required of you. We are all accountable to somebody for the work we do. The question to ask ourselves is: what must I do that nobody else can do for me? If we’re doing something that is not absolutely necessary, we should probably eliminate it. If we’re doing something that is necessary but that someone else could do, then we should delegate it.
2 – What gives the greatest return?
We should list what gives us the greatest return on our activity.
We should spend most of our time working in our areas of greatest strength. If what we are doing can be done 70-80 percent as well by someone else, then we will be better off delegating it. If you identify a responsibility that someone else could do, consider developing and training a person to take care of it.
Look at what activities yield the greatest return, or the greatest impact, and work on those. Sometimes this is “low-hanging fruit” that can be done quickly and be impactful.
3 – What brings the greatest reward?
What gives the greatest satisfaction? In many ways seeing a great impact provides great satisfaction. The tasks that you enjoy doing should be ones you actually do. For your satisfaction and peace of mind.
The tasks you do should fit into one of these categories. If it does not, then you need to take a good look at the task and ask if it should even be done?
I find myself falling into this trap from time to time. I get hung up on time wasters or doing things that are not going to give me a good return on my time investment. It happens. But we must guard against it.
When we team up prioritizing tasks, with the 4 Quadrants of time management, we can be so much more effective.
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