A quick step-by-step guide to making a prioritisation plan
Prioritisation is an important skill to hone. There are no right or wrong methods for getting stuff done, but having an effective way to prioritise will undeniably make your life easier. Successful prioritisation will stop you from feeling overwhelmed and help you to deliver results efficiently.
This blog is a step-by-step guide for creating a prioritisation plan effectively.
Info to know before you start
Before you make your prioritisation plan, you need to know:
- Output: What needs to be done
- Timeline: When it needs to be done by
- Resources: How much time you need to dedicate (roughly) to do it
How to make a prioritisation plan
Once you know what’s involved, you can make your prioritisation plan following this step by step guide.
1. Write down everything that needs to be done
A bit like Marie Kondo helping us to tidy our houses, the first step is to write out everything you need to do. Having everything in front of you will give you the overall picture of the tasks at hand.
2. Break it down
Break it down into doable chunks: Imagine you’re about to climb a mountain and you’re stood at the bottom looking up at this seemingly insurmountable challenge. Rather than seeing the mountain as one entity to climb, if you take it one step at a time it suddenly seems a lot less daunting and significantly more achievable to climb.
Likewise with facing tasks or a project before you start, there is so much to be done it can feel insurmountable. Thus, break the tasks down into bite size chunks to make it feel manageable — tick these off as you go to mark your progress.
Know the minimum that must be done: to maintain focus on what must be delivered, know what the minimum is that must be done. In business terminology, this is called the Minimum Viable Product, or MVP. What is the minimum that must be done before you can go to market?
Focusing on the minimum that must be completed is another way of saying what is the most important tasks to get done and these should be at the top of your prioritisation list.
Order and dependencies: is there an order in which your tasks must be done? Can one task only be started once another task has been completed? Following the natural flow of tasks is an easy way to make an order for your prioritisation plan.
In sum, take all the tasks that need to be done, re-order them so that the MVP tasks are at the top and ensure that the order makes sense according to any dependencies that may exist.
3. Be honest with yourself
Having completed step 2, you may have some tasks that still don’t fit into a plan. If so, it’s up to you to choose which tasks go where. You’re likely to avoid the tasks you don’t want to do and do the easy tasks first. Therefore, you need to ask yourself three questions:
- Which tasks do you want to do first?
- What tasks do you not want to do?
- Why do you not want to do them and why are you putting them off?
There will always be tasks that you don’t want to do because they are more complex or take a lot of effort. You put off doing them without even realising you’re avoiding them. If the MVP tasks are also the tasks that you don’t want to do, it’s good to recognise that you may avoiding them. Factor in more time to deliver these task as you’ll need a buffer for psyching yourself up or for getting distracted (ya, it happens). If you’re self-aware that you’re avoiding a task, you’re more likely to consciously change your behaviour and work on getting it done.
Therefore, you can also re-order the plan to accommodate for which tasks you do or don’t want to do. Maybe put the tasks you don’t want to do first rather than last and you’ll feel relieved and reinvigorated once they’re complete.
4. Know your timings
Great. Now you’ve prioritised your tasks, it’s time to make a timeline. You must know:
What the deadline is: simple, when does everything have to be done by?
How long it will take you to do: assign a rough time estimate to every task so you know how much time you’ll have to dedicate to getting everything done. If you’ve got a week to do a project of seven tasks, can you do one a day? Or will one task take two days and the rest only ten minutes?
The next step is to take your tasks and overlay the deliverables onto a calendar to show you when you aim to deliver what. Continually refer to the calendar as it will help you to keep on target.
Top Tip: if you’re tasks are a mix of quick or long undertakings, I would recommend mixing them up. Do a couple of quick tasks alongside a long task.
5. Set small, achievable goals
So how do we put our deliverables into a timeline? How do we know how much we can achieve, for example, in a day?
It may sound counter-intuitive but start off by setting yourself small but achievable goals. Why? Because the better we feel about ourselves the more we shall achieve!
Let me explain. If you accomplish all the tasks you set yourself to do in a day, you’ll feel great about yourself (aren’t you so efficient!). You’ll even be energised to continue working, because you’re just so effective you can manage it.
Conversely, if you fail to finish all the tasks you set yourself, you’ll feel like a failure and lose motivation to continue.
Therefore, work into your prioritisation plan more manageable goals at the start and as you achieve your goals, you’ll feel invigorated to keep going and overachieve. Having said that, make sure you’re not leaving too much to the last minute because that will stress you out too close to a deadline. The balance is fine so be flexible and change your plan if you fall too far away from your timeline.
In conclusion
To make a prioritisation plan you need to know:
- Output: What needs to be done
- Timeline: When it needs to be done by
- Resources: How much time you need to dedicate (roughly) to do it
Then, follow these five steps make the plan and you’ll be on your way to efficiently and effectively delivering your goals just like a well oiled factory line:
- Write down everything that needs to be done
- Break it down into sizeable chunks, knowing what your MVP is and if there is a natural order to get things done
- If there are tasks that haven’t been put into the plan yet, ask yourself what tasks you want to do and which ones you don’t and adapt the plan accordingly. Put more time aside for doing tasks you don’t want to do as it may involve time for a pep talk with yourself!
- Put the tasks into a timeline that meets the deadline
- Set small achievable goals so you get buoyed up by your progress!
Good luck!
