How to pick a path when all of them lead somewhere.
You probably have too many things that you want to achieve
With any project or initiatives more often than not you need to prioritize tasks, cause . With time not on our side, you need a simple way of figuring out what to focus on and what to skip.
Two popular matrices that are widely used are Eisenhower Matrix and Impact/Effort Matrix. With both of them you simplify and condense all data you have on a task and plot them based upon two criteria.
The Eisenhower Matrix
It is easy to focus on urgent tasks and never get to work on the important tasks. Focusing on putting out the fire rather than figuring out what is feeding the fire, is a sure way of continuing in fire fighting mode.
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower realized that we need to spend time on important tasks and not only urgent task, that urgency alone is not the only factor on how important a task is.
Thus the two criteria are Urgency and Importance.
Just Do It!
Tasks with high importance and urgency are easy to prioritize. Just Do It!
Decide When
These are slightly more tricky. Since they are super important, but not that urgent, we tend to forget about them. These tasks need to be scheduled or they might end up in Just Do It!
Delegate
You should try to delegate the urgent but not important tasks or better yet, find a way to automate them.
Try to Skip It
Time wasters, ineffective meetings with no agendas, reports to fill out. Can it be removed, remove it, skip it, kill it!
Impact Effort Matrix
There are some similarities to Eisenhower Matrix, but the focus on Impact/Effort matrix is pretty clear from the naming. Effort is a sense of how much time a task takes or how complex it will be to solve. With Impact we try to measure the importance of the outcome.
Quick Wins!
These low effort and high impact tasks are your low hanging fruits. Pick them quickly!
Fill Ins!
Things to fill out your week. Takes a little time and have some minor impact.
Major Projects
These tasks are probably not tasks. You’ll never get them done without planning and scheduling. Don’t do too many of these at the same time since they need a lot of focus.
Not Worth It!
Stop it immediately. Do nothing in this area.
“Don’t spend major time on minor things” — Jim Rohn
Now take out your physical or digital sticky notes, write down your tasks. Put them on the matrix that suits your need. Then let the discussions begin, cause maybe a task that you think is a Quick Win is a Major Project for someone else.