EPISODE 17 - Organisation: How do I prioritize my tasks efficiently

Michael Seidl: Ahem. Welcome to a new episode of the Get Shipped on an IT podcast. My name is Michael Seidel and today we talk about how to prioritize your tasks. So there are a lot of methods, a lot of ways how to do it. And in my opinion, there is one way and one very logical way to do it. And about this method I want to talk today. So it's called the Eisenhower Matrix. But there a lot of more things. It's called Eaterfrog, 80 -20, Pomodoro and so on. So there a lot of things, a lot of methods out there. But in my opinion, it's just a no brainer how to prioritize if you understand the way and see the limits what you have. the first thing and your main prerequisites are have all your to -dos in one single source. So if you're not listening to this podcast the first time, you know I'm a fan of having a one single source of all your to -dos. And that's also mandatory for this system. So you need a one overview of all your things you have to do to prioritize and to see what is more important and what is less important. So that's mandatory. So if you don't have this system, do your homework and build a single source of all your things you have to do or you want to do. And then you can use the Eisenhower matrix to define and prioritize your to -dos. But first, do your homework and have a single source. And then...

Michael Seidl: So for my example, I go through my to -do's on a weekly basis, very quick, on a monthly basis, a little bit more. And every half a year, I really do all the stuff, complete cleanup, complete overview of all the projects and so on. And of course, this takes some time. But the weekly stuff is basically 50 minutes or so to... plan my week ahead. And this is definitely a very good invested time because it really helps you to be more productive and don't lose any time on shifting to -dos or whatever. So sit down on Sunday evening or maybe Monday morning and see everything you have to do. Maybe go through emails and put that in that single source of list and then go through that list and decide what is important and what is urgent. And Eisenhower metrics are four fields. On the top left, there is urgent and important. On the low right, there is not important, not urgent. on the opposite side, there is urgent and not important, and not important, but urgent. And if you keep in mind that a week has seven days, of course, 24 hours, so that's your potential of of time you can work on your to -dos. then reduce it by sleeping time or spare time or kids time, whatever. And just see the potential hours for this to -dos. So maybe 12 hours a day. Let's keep on this. So work to -dos and private to -dos. And so you have 12 hours a day. For example, weekend, of course, is a little bit different, but your potential hours a week and then it is much more easier to define what is important and what is urgent. So if you see you have on Monday only eight hours to do anything or anything of those to -do's and some of those to -do's has a deadline for example you have to finish your budget for the upcoming year by the end of next week so that is important.

Michael Seidl: And this is urgent because there is a time frame and time of that to do. So this has to be done. So it is important. And of course, budget is important and urgent. The next one is if we work all in IT. So if a customer has a problem or your IT system has a lockdown or any problems, remember the default decode a few weeks ago where a lot of Windows systems have a blue screen. So that is very urgent, also important. So this has definitely top priority. Or for example, if you have a escalation meeting with one of your customers, this is also very important because you want to work with that customer in the future and it is also very important. Other things might be you have to write the concept of maybe next security to do so or anything. So that might be important, but not that urgent because it is, it should be done by the end of this year. So it's not urgent, but it is important. And there are a lot of more examples, but that's, that's how it works. So first classify all your to -dos in those four, four fields you see in the Eisenhower matrix. And based on your classification, you then have to plan them accordingly. So everything, what is important and what is urgent needs to be planned first. And make sure you have realistic estimation of how long does this to do take. So escalation call might take 10 minutes or also possible that it takes half an hour, an hour, maybe it depends on the customer or on the other side. So maybe you have a feeling on maybe the customer wants to talk a little bit more or less. So, but plan those things realistically with the estimated time. Otherwise, if you plan everything for five minutes, then you will really get stressed and bored or stressed because it

Michael Seidl: have no chance to finish those to -dos in five minutes. So that makes no sense. So plan your time and estimate realistically. if you classified your to -dos, then it's easy to plan them ahead. And the next thing is, so if you have planned your to -dos on or you have classified your to -dos, and then there might be more than one to -do in the important and urgent. And of course then it's related. Can you do it only in the office? Then of course you have to wait for Monday at eight or nine AM. But also what helps me a lot is it is called eat the frog. Do those things you don't want to do first. Because then the bad things is done and you don't need to remember to do that thing the whole day. keep it in your head, but do those things you don't like to do. For example, I don't like bookkeeping, but I usually do it on Friday morning before all the meetings and to do start. I do my bookkeeping. I don't like it, but then it's done and finished. So do those things you don't like, you don't want to do, but you have to do first and then do the rest of the things and you will see that it's getting much, much easier. to do all the other stuff after those things you don't want it to do. But when it's finished, it's much easier. And that's the trick. That's everything. So first, the mandatory thing is to have a single source of all your to -dos. Then go through those to -dos and keep in mind that you only have this amount of hours. in the next week. And with that in your head and in your mind, then go through the list and prioritize through the Eisenhower metrics. can Google and search it in the internet. There might be a better description than I did, but it's just a simple thing. Is it important? Is it urgent? On the top left field and so on. And based on those classification, then you can plan your things.

Michael Seidl: ahead and for the next week, for the next month, for the next year, whatever. So that's it for this week and this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you at least try it and maybe it helps you as well as it did for me. If you have any questions for this podcast, I would be happy to answer your questions in one of the next episodes. Please send me a text message or a voice message on LinkedIn. I will answer this question in one of the next episodes. At the end, say thank you for listening, enjoy your week, stay productive and bye bye.