Manage Your Priorities Better: 9 Easy-to-Implement Tips

Managing your priorities well is not about working faster. It is about choosing, several times a day, what deserves your attention now and what can wait. People who manage it are not necessarily more disciplined than others: they have simply set up a few habits that spare them from deciding under pressure. Here are nine of them, to adopt one at a time.

Signs that your priorities are slipping away

Before changing anything, take a quick look at your current situation. If several of these situations sound familiar, these tips will save you time:

• you end the day busy without having moved forward on the file that matters;
• important tasks are only handled the day before the deadline;
• you discover forgotten commitments when someone reminds you of them;
• your inbox decides the order of your days;
• you find it hard to say what you will work on tomorrow morning.

1. Apply the 2-minute rule

Popularised by David Allen in his Getting Things Done method, the rule is simple: any action that takes less than two minutes is done immediately. Accepting a meeting request, forwarding a document, approving an expense report.

The logic is economic: writing down, scheduling and then finding such a short task takes longer than doing it. And not writing it down means risking forgetting it.

2. List all your actions

You cannot prioritise what you cannot see. The basis of any organisation is a single, complete list of what you have to do, from the email to send to the meeting to prepare.

The medium matters little: notebook, app, spreadsheet or task management software. What matters is that there is only one, that you can consult it anywhere, and that it is kept up to date. A living list is one from which you remove what is done or abandoned, and to which you add each new commitment as soon as it is made.

Once the list exists, it has to be sorted. Several methods exist, from the simplest to the most structured; our article on the importance of prioritisation in task management explains how to choose and apply them.

3. Eat the frog

The expression "Eat the frog", popularised by Brian Tracy, means doing the hardest task first. In every list there are one or two tasks that are longer, more tedious or more uncomfortable than the others. They are often the ones that matter most, and the ones we keep postponing.

Handling them at the start of the day has two effects. You do them when your energy is highest. And you free yourself from the mental load they represent: a dreaded task weighs on the whole day until it is done. It is one of the most effective weapons against procrastination.

4. Learn to say no

Days do not stretch. Each time you accept a request, you take time away from something else, often without having decided it. Out of a wish to do well or fear of disappointing, we accept tasks we will not be able to deliver, and all our work suffers: delays, lower quality, stress spilling over into personal life.

Saying no does not mean refusing bluntly. A well-worded no opens a discussion:

• "Not tonight, but I can get it to you on Friday."
• "I can take it on if we postpone project X. Which matters more to you?"
• "I'm not the best person for this; you should ask a colleague who handles it."

This is where your list becomes valuable: it makes your workload visible and lets you arbitrate with facts rather than impressions.

5. Do one task at a time

Multitasking gives the impression of moving forward on everything. In reality, the brain does not handle several demanding tasks in parallel: it switches from one to the other, and each switch has a cost. It takes time to get back into a subject, and errors multiply.

Focus on one task, finish it or reach a clear milestone, then move on to the next. The work is faster, of better quality, and you do not have to come back to it to correct it.

6. Plan focus time

An important task needs continuous time. If your calendar is cut into thirty-minute slices between two meetings, that time never exists. You have to create it.

Block one or two slots a week, or even a day, in your calendar for deep work. Treat them like an appointment: show yourself as unavailable, close your inbox, silence your phone. One or two hours are often enough to make more progress than a whole fragmented day.

7. Eliminate distractions and remove alerts

Even outside these slots, the working environment is designed to capture attention. Social networks, professional ones included, are built so that one minute becomes twenty. Email notifications interrupt a train of thought, and each interruption requires time to get back on track.

A few simple settings make a big difference:

• turn off email notifications and check your inbox at set times;
• group instant messaging apps and mute sound alerts;
• put your phone away during important tasks;
• close browser tabs unrelated to the task at hand.

In most jobs, replying to a message thirty minutes or two hours later is not a problem. The gain in concentration, on the other hand, is immediate.

8. Plan breathing moments during the day

Nobody stays focused for hours on end with the same efficiency. Breaks are not wasted time: they let you recover and start again with a clear mind. At school, breaks are written into the timetable; at work, they are often the first thing sacrificed.

Plan them like everything else: a few minutes between two work sessions, a real lunch, a moment to walk. They prevent end-of-day exhaustion, and with it the errors and hasty decisions that come with it.

9. Organise your day in 10 minutes

This last tip brings the other eight together. Every morning, or the evening before, take ten minutes:

1. Update the list: remove what is done or no longer needed, add new requests.
2. Review the priorities: the Eisenhower matrix helps you separate what is urgent from what is important.
3. Look at your calendar: spot the meetings, block a focus slot and one or two breaks.
4. Choose your frog: the task you will tackle first.

You start the day knowing what matters, instead of letting your inbox decide for you.

Where to start: a three-week plan

Trying to apply all nine tips from Monday is the best way to keep none of them. A habit settles better when you add it to the previous ones, one at a time.

After three weeks, take stock: which habits hold without effort, which still require attention? Keep the ones that work for you and adjust the others.

And in a team?

These habits are individual, but their effects also depend on the team. A focus slot does not hold if everyone constantly calls on everyone else. A reasoned no is only possible if the team's priorities are clear. That is the role of the manager: setting shared priorities, making everyone's workload visible and following up actions without multiplying reminders. You will find more practical guides in our resources for effective managers, and the origins of the urgent and important distinction in our article on the history of the Eisenhower matrix.