Summary: Welcome to episode 19 of BrainTree podcast! Rocky and Prue are back in the hot seat after Prue's trip to Canada and this episode they're ready to give you advice on prioritising. So let's get started! [04:14] Prue starts us off with her quote for this episode. Today the quote is from Stephen Covey, "The key is not to prioritize what's in your schedule, but to schedule your priorities" [06:05] Prue tells us a story about learning not to avoid things you dread any more and her trypanophobia. Rocky tells us that the fear is worse than the action itself. [09:18] Rocky tells us about the Pareto principle or the 80:20 rule. So 20% of our effort yields 80% of the results. So it's better to find and work on what's important and to prioritise than just working on everything at once. [13:38] Prue gives us a simple method for prioritising work, and that is to ask yourself "what do I have to get done before I go to bed tonight?" Rocky asks about long-term projects and Prue tells us that your long term projects should involve planning, so that it's a group of smaller tasks that have staggered deadlines. Rocky suggests we take a look back at episode four - motivation, to learn more about this. [17:30] So the how do we decide what's important? Prue gives us some more advice from Stephen Covey in ranking tasks into four quadrants. [19:55] Prue tells us about another technique and warns us against just writing a list of tasks to be completed as it will just lead to stress. If you have less than ten tasks to complete then you can try to rank them, otherwise just circle and prioritise the top three tasks. [22:19] Another technique is known as the C.U.L.L. technique. This stands for What is Critical? What is Urgent? What can I put off until Later? Lose it! Prue runs us through this technique and explains that some things just don't need to happen. [25:20] Prue runs through another couple of techniques and speculates if it's mainly females that use the Radial Pile Technique, which involves arranging tasks in a circle around your desk. [28:56] Rocky tells us a story of prioritising in his own life and tells us that it's also important to schedule and prioritise your home life in around your work. Prue also says to have a guideline for how much time you plan to spend on any given task. If you have any other tips for prioritising then please let us know. Don't forget to sign up for updates and leave us a review on iTunes!
