Weekly Course on Time Management – Week 2 – Master Your Day With The Power Of Priority Of Life

Today, I will teach you how to master your day through the Power of Priority of Life. I call it the Power of Priority of Life because once you have laid out the most critical priority in your life and other secondary priorities in your life supporting this top priority, you will be able to control your time better.

For me, the priority of my life is myself, my family, and my loved ones. I would try to schedule my day always to have time for my loved ones and ME. Other priorities in my life, such as my work, are my secondary priorities but are also crucial because my sense of fulfillment when I finish a work project makes me feel so good. And when I feel so good, I am happy and in a good mood, and my positive mindset rubs off on the people around me. My sense of happiness will impact my relationship with my family and loved ones, which is my top priority in life. However, this current mindset of mine is a stark contrast to my previous one.

There was a period when I was so stressed by the things I had to do every day that I would feel my whole body tremble with frustration. I was so stressed that I wouldn’t even take 5 minutes of my time to care for myself. I constantly thought about my to-do lists and worrying about how that imperfectly arranged bookshelf not shelved according to the genre would make my world fall apart. When I look at myself in hindsight, I feel like I was a hamster constantly running on the spinning wheel without any rest. How could anyone be happy without a good break? I was so determined to break my misery cycle that I decided to study how the busiest people in the world manage their time.

Have you ever looked at the fully packed schedules of the busiest people in the world and wondered how do they manage to do all of it in a single day? Some of the world’s most successful people work 10-12 hours a day and still have time for their families, personal growth, and socializing.

The key to time management lies in setting your priorities straight. Instead of wishing for more time, your strategy in life should be to make time for the things that matter. This is where a priority checklist comes in handy.

Once you learn to identify your priorities and commit to them, you will realize that you can, indeed, manage your time and live a fulfilling life.

Do you have a planner to help you set your priorities in life? If not, why not build a customized planner for yourself using the hundreds of planner pages and resources I have given you here?  If you prefer physical planners, shop here.

Why Is It Important to Prioritize?

Identifying what is important to you and which tasks you should complete first will help you productively utilize the hours in your day. When you know what your priorities in life are, you dedicate your time and energy to them. And since hard work never goes to waste, you soon begin to see the results. Whether it is your relationships, your job, your ambitions, or your health that is your priority right now, clearly defining them and working towards them will significantly improve the quality of your life.

How To Prioritize And Determine Your Priority Of Life?

Use the 3-list method for identifying your priorities. There are 2 ways to do it.

First Method:

Have 3 priority checklists with the following headings:

• Monthly priority checklist
• Weekly priority checklist
• Daily priority checklist

I would recommend working backward. Think of broad, monthly priorities first. What is it that you want to achieve within this month, or what are your major commitments for this month? It could be that you want to fix that water heater before the winter starts, or you want to improve your child’s grammar. It could even be commitments to yourself, like losing 10lbs or completing that online course on Women Entrepreneurship. Once you have identified your monthly priorities, narrow them down to weekly priorities and then daily priorities. When you set your priorities, be very clear of your top priority because all your priorities should revolve around your top priority.

Example:

Monthly Priority – Completing the online course on Women Entrepreneurship

Weekly Priority – Completing 5 chapters on Women Entrepreneurship

Daily Priority – Completing chapter 1 on Women Entrepreneurship

Second Method:

If the above checklist method doesn’t work for you or you have a hard time breaking down your priorities into actionable monthly, weekly, and daily plans, try this 3-checklist method.

• Work priority checklist
• Relationships priority checklist
• Self priority checklist

Creating this 3-category checklist will encourage you to think of the things listed under all 3 categories. You may be thinking that I don’t have any goals for myself, and my life is entirely dedicated to my work and family, but this 3-checklist method will help you prioritize yourself.

Jot down 3-5 priorities under each category to have a clear idea of what your priorities are for the coming months. Keep them short, simple, and to the point.

Example:

Work/ Career	Relationships	Self
Repairing the basement	Spending more time with hubby	Losing 10lbs
Starting online Spanish classes	Homeschooling children	Learning new recipes
Setting up a blog on homeschooling	Visiting Mama in New Jersey	Reading more books

Now that you know what your priorities for the coming months are in each category, you can try to break them down into workable steps and invest a few minutes or hours each day into working towards at least 1 priority under each category.

For example, you cannot visit your mother in New Jersey unless it is the weekends or holidays. But you can start to spend more time with your husband every night.

What Must You Do To Master Your Priority Of Life?

• Create priority checklists.
• Spend your day working towards those priorities.
• Evaluate your priority checklists every night before sleeping to plan your course of action for the next day.
• Evaluate your priorities at the end of the month and tick off what has been done to add more priorities for the coming months.

Summary

Remember, every second, minute, or hour that you spend in the day should be for the important things. Do not invest time and energy into things that are not a priority. Instead of letting time control you, you should be in control of your time.

So, if you want to spend an hour arranging your closet to make more room for your winter clothing, then it should be your choice to spend those 60 minutes on closet cleaning. But if it is not your priority, then do not waste your precious 60 minutes on a task that can easily be left for another day.

I Wish You All The Best In Setting Your Priorities In Life, 

Ashley Yeo 

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