At the end of each day, are you baffled by the fact that you’ve accomplished absolutely nothing of value?
It’s so easy to get caught up in the thick of things that you forget to really pay attention to the things that produce identifiable returns.
Whether you spend your days working in an office or taking care of things at home, it’s important to inject value in your tasks to avoid monotony and reassure yourself that you’re making the most of your time.
Luckily, it’s fairly easy to determine if what you’re about to embark on each day will produce the value you’re comfortable with.
You can also download our task planning worksheet to help you plan more effectively.
Follow this 4-step process to determine the best plan of action for your day:
1. Prioritize. First, prioritize your tasks. Give some thought to everything you have in mind to accomplish today and put them in order of which ones you think are most important.
Based on your role and responsibilities, determine what’s most important.
Do this each day until it becomes habit.
2. Assess the outcome. Once you’ve prioritized, take some time to assess the outcome of each task you’ve listed. What will you achieve when you complete each task? What’s the end result? At this stage, you probably feel confident that you prioritized effectively because you like the results of the top-priority items.
Your boss will pat you on the back for doing a task well.
Your kids will shower you with hugs and kisses for being super-mum.
3. Determine the impact. Looking at the outcome is important, but really taking a look at the impact or value of the outcome is even more important. Yes, it’s possible to like the results of the top-priority items, but are they giving you the best value or impact? Will you wake up the next day beaming because you feel fulfilled?
Adding value means producing a result that supports the greater reward.
You know you’ve achieved value from a task when the returns are evident and unquestionable.
4. Re-prioritize. Now that you’ve determined the value of each task, you’ll need to re-prioritize, but this time your top-priority items will be based 100% on the value to be derived from them.
Your boss will pat you on the back for doing a task well, and reward you for increasing the company’s revenues.
Those hugs and kisses from the kids will make you happy, but the value found in their happiness is of utmost importance.
You can probably go though the daily motions doing things how you currently do them and feel somewhat satisfied at the end. There’s probably nothing wrong with how you handle your days right now.
However, if the greater reward is what you truly seek, then you’ll be better off trying to determine how to get the most value out of your day.
By sticking to the formula outlined, you can rest assured that you’ll not only get the desired outcome, but also the satisfaction of knowing that the desired outcome will produce the best value proposition.
Actively seek out value and when you’ve found it, it will be very easy to plan your days effectively.