Priorities come up a lot in my conversations with clients.

 

Janet wonders why a prospect hasn’t answered her calls a couple of days after she’d left a message.
Frank is perplexed that he’d been chasing up repeat work from a client with no success, yet when he met them by chance at a show, they said they were still interested.

In both these cases it is simply that Janet and Frank had these prospects at the top of their priority list but the prospects clearly had other things at the top of theirs.

No answer doesn’t mean ‘no’.

That’s why persistence (and a good CRM) is important.

Another conversation about priorities was with a client who had spent three weeks coping with staff absences and crazy schedules when their only priority was keeping customers happy.

They’d had no choice but to concentrate on what was both urgent and important so they wanted to get back to prioritising the important but not urgent tasks to make sure they achieve their goals.

We agreed on the list and I left them working out their schedules to make sure that every task had a time slot.

Because we all know that what doesn’t get scheduled, doesn’t get done!

If you prioritise your To-Do list, a great tip is to re-prioritise the list every time you cross something off but its even better if everything is allocated its own time slot in your schedule.

If you’re always playing catch up, I bet you’re underestimating the time you allocate to each task.

If you want to work smart, prioritise and schedule every task and check how long each task takes!

If you’d like more tips on managing your time and prioritising, just ask!