Do you struggle to stay focused on your priorities? Do you feel as if you are torn in a hundred directions and aren’t making the progress you like in the areas of your life that you know are really important to you. If so, keep on reading as I’ll be showing you how to stay focused on your priorities.
If I asked you write now “What are your priorities?” would you be able to answer me quickly? If I then looked at your diary would I see a strong correlation between what you said is a priority to you and how you are spending your time. If you answered no to either of those questions you are not alone.
Most people spend their time trying to get through each day and being very reactive to the world around them. Setting and staying focused on your priorities is about being proactive. It is about making a conscious decision about what is important to you and what you want to be focusing your time, energy and resources on.
WHAT ARE PRIORITIES?
According to the dictionary, a priority is “a thing that is regarded as more important than others”.
Now your priorities will change depending on the context. For example, you can priorities based on a time frame (daily, weekly or monthly priority) or a specific area of your life (work, business or health priorities).
CHOOSING YOUR PRIORITIES FOR YOUR LIFE
Before you can stay focused on your priorities, you’ll need to get clear on what your priorities are.
Now you might be fortunate enough to instantly think you know what your priorities are. If that is you, then you can skip this section. However, if you aren’t sure about your priorities don’t worry. Lots of people aren’t clear and there are ways you can uncover your priorities.
A great way to work out what areas of your life you should be prioritising is by using the Wheel of Life. The Wheel of Life is a tool where you score your satisfaction with your life right now in different areas. Some common areas are health, finances, romantic relationships, family, friends work, personal growth, business, spirituality and recreation.
By scoring the different areas of your life you can visually see how you feel about the various areas of your life and then make a choice about what your priority should be going forward.
You can find a step-by-step guide to complete the wheel of life here.
What is important to mention is that you don’t have to focus on the areas that perform the worst. Whilst the natural reaction is to think you should be prioritising the areas that you scored the lowest in the fact is that maybe the areas you currently score high on are your current priorities and if they are no longer a priority the score will drop. Instead, you need to think about what areas of your life are the most important for you.
Timeframe
When it comes to choosing your priorities it is important to set time frames. Setting timeframes should help you to realise that whilst you are deciding to focus on certain areas of your life (and therefore not focus on other areas) that it is for a while and then you can change your priorities.
For general areas of your life, I would recommend you set your priorities for at least a month, but that isn’t a hard and fast rule. For example, you may have set yourself a word for the year (learn how to choose your word of the year here.) and that gives you a clear priority for the year.
KEEPING YOUR PRIORITIES TOP OF MIND
If you want to stay focused on your priorities then it is important that you remember what your priorities are. Whilst it might be nice to imagine that you sit down, choose your priorities and then start living your life by them the fact is that most of us will naturally revert back to the way we have been living our life. Therefore, you’ll need to keep on reminding yourself what your priorities are.
To keep your priorities top of mind there are a few things you can do:
– Display them somewhere that you look every day
– Write them down in your diary daily
– Create a screensaver for your phone or computer
MAKE TIME FOR YOUR PRIORITIES
Stephen Covey is quoted for saying
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities”.
If you have decided that something is a priority for you then it should take up a considerable amount of your time. It should be clear from your diary what areas of your life you are currently focusing on.
This means you’ll need to think about your priorities and then block out time to do the necessary actions to improve your life in that area. For example, maybe you have said that you want to focus on your health in relation to exercise. This means in your diary you should be making appointments for when you’ll be doing the exercise. Or maybe you have said that you want to start a blog then you’ll block time to work out how to start a blog and then weekly writing time.
To really stay focused on your priorities you’ll need to block out the time and stick to it. Think of all of those appointments as commitments to yourself and your future. Think of them as non-negotiable in terms of moving them and if for someone reason you end up having to move one automatically book in a new slot. Don’t let the urgency of today impact your long-term future.
REMIND YOURSELF OF THE BIGGEST PURPOSE AND YOUR LONG-TERM VISION
One of the biggest reasons people don’t stay focused on their priorities is because they are too busy. What this usually means is that there are lots of “urgent” requests on their time. There is always something that need to be done today that your priorities get pushed aside. This usually happens for 2 reasons.
1. Other people will ask us to do things and it is easier for you to say no to yourself than someone else.
2. It is easier to focus on something that you can quickly see the result from than something that takes longer to be impactful.
Priorities are usually bigger areas of your life and therefore the change you are wanting to creating isn’t instant. However, you have to remember every time you keep saying no to your priority and doing something else you are pushing the change you want in your life further and further away.
This is why it is important to remember the biggest purpose of setting your priorities. If you did the wheel of life you would have created a vision for what you want your life to look like in relation to that area. Remind yourself of how you would feel if that was your actual life rather than a dream. Get the vision so clear in your head that you understand what you are delaying by not staying focused on your priorities.
There you have it! Now you know how to get the most out of the books you read.
I hope you have found this helpful. I would love to know in the comments below what one of your current priorities is.
