When I was planning out my blog posts at the start of this year, I asked some of my followers and other small business owners for ideas of topics they’d like me to cover. The things that turned up the most, were about planning and time management, and more specifically planning out priorities and sticking to them plus ideas on saving time.
I thought I had blogged on the subject of planning and prioritising tasks previously, and talked of several techniques. However, I realise most of these posts still sit in my drafts, not yet published.
This is the first in a set of three articles that aim to tackle those subjects. Part two will cover prioritisation techniques. And a third part will be on how to stick to the priorities you set.
First let’s look at making the plan. What have you got on your plate? What is there to do? Then later, we will tackle looking at those tasks, working out what priority they take, and whether or when you will do them.
Planning Your Tasks
The easiest way for me to discuss this is to describe how I approach planning my tasks. I will explain what I do.
* At the start of the year (or probably towards the end of the previous), I set objectives for the year ahead
* I break them down quarterly, prioritising what I want to achieve first etc.
* Then refer to the quarterly objectives when I set out what I plan to achieve on a monthly basis
* Cascade this down to weekly and daily tasks
I do also review how I’ve done against my plan (more of that in part 3), and I also have another re-planning and re-prioritisation session ahead of September, the start of the academic year, and for me, often after a few weeks break from work.
For me, most of my planning is done in a Bullet Journal (BUJO). There are also many diary systems, productivity planners, notebooks, printable and online templates available for use to do this planning and prioritising. I am designing some myself, so watch this space if you are interested.
I support this plan using Microsoft To Do, of course there are many other TO DO list tools/software and apps available on the market, so which you choose depends on personal preference. The reason I use MS To Do, is because I can operate it on both my laptop and on my iPhone through an app. It can hold loads of tasks, organised in varying lists. Some of them personal, mainly business, my Guide To Do’s as well. This app can support many MS365 accounts, all feeding into this one platform, meaning I can also have my client tasks in the same place.
In the later versions of the software, it automatically adds tasks scheduled on a particular date to My Day, on the date I have scheduled them. Providing an automated reminder of everything I have planned out. And as it’s on my phone, I can see this easily when I am on the move.
I only tend to put the higher priority tasks in MS To Do, unless I am out and about, and it is an easy place to note something down. I don’t put every single little task in. Sometimes it is quicker to do the task, than to make a note of it.
For Projects, I do also use Trello, a Kanban style Project Management tool. For bigger businesses there are other Kanban board tools available. I have discussed Kanban Board tools on another blog post https://oysterflamepearlsofwisdom.wordpress.com/2024/03/26/choosing-the-right-project-management-board-for-your-team/ These tools allow you to manage the tasks on boards and cards, in varying flexible ways which include enabling you to indicate priorities and share/control task ownership.
Regular tasks, and one off tasks, don’t always lend themselves to this type of task management, especially if you aren’t already using a tool of this nature for project activities.
Personally, I like to use a combination of paper plans and technology. But that is entirely a personal preference. I also appreciate that in some cases this does risk duplication. There are varying tools I might consider using for a single solution to support all these functions, however for the time being this works for me, my life and my size of business (just me).
The important thing about planning is that the tasks you have on your ‘list’, and everything you need to achieve is all captured, in your tool of choice. Things ‘to do’ that are just in your head can’t be planned or prioritised. Tasks swimming round in your head get forgotten. Tasks in your head are difficult to delegate. And it is almost impossible to be able to consider their priorities against each other, without being able to see them in black and white.
So my advice to anyone reading this with a head full of ideas and things to do, is to take the first step and write them all down. Write down everything you want, need and think you should or might do.
Then the next step will be to prioritise those tasks. Once you have finished working out where to write it all down, and have captured everything, revisit my blog and hopefully I will have published my thoughts and some insight into varying techniques to help you with the next step.
In the meantime, enjoy finding that notebook or productivity planner (especially if you love stationery), or the right app. And get that To Do list written down. If it’s in a plan, a task is much more likely to get done.