Setting priorities lightens the mind and makes life easier. So we can focus on what really matters. We know all this. Yet, when we face a new day, the unexpected and emergencies hit us with all their strength, making us forget our priorities. So we end up submerged in a tangle of small irrelevant problems that become black holes that drain our time and our energy.
We must learn to prioritize. We know it. But how do you set priorities when everything seems urgent? How to prioritize when the world pushes us in another direction? How to stay on course if all the unforeseen events present themselves as a matter of life or death?
How to set priorities when everything is urgent?
For people who are very demanding of themselves and for those who have difficulty delegating, the "default option" is usually to take charge of everything. Prioritize everything. Obviously, it's a bad choice because exhaustion will eventually knock on our door sooner or later.
However, in a fast-paced world where everything seems urgent - but few things really are - learning to avoid chaos and assigning each task the relevance it deserves is an essential skill if we don't want to end up overwhelmed, stressed and frustrated.
• Assume that we don't have to be able to do everything
We live in the society of fatigue, basically because each of us brings with us our own "forced labor camp", to paraphrase the philosopher Byung-Chul Han. We exploit ourselves by believing that we are realizing ourselves, but in reality we can only bring ourselves to the limit, physical and mental.
Sure, overloading ourselves with activities can make us feel like superheroes. The idea of coping with everything sounds good. But it is not sustainable in the long term. Therefore, the first step in prioritizing is to stop demanding so much of ourselves and recognize that we can't do everything, and it's not even necessary. It means admitting that we are human and that many of the tasks we perform on a daily basis probably do not contribute to our well-being.
• Develop a global vision
For a long time, uncertainty has taken root in our lives. And she is likely to be our travel companion for a long time to come. Due to uncertainty, what is important today may be irrelevant tomorrow. Therefore, it should be noted that we often lack a broad and long-term perspective.
If we look at just one thing, blinded by current circumstances, we are likely to give it more importance than it deserves. To escape this trap, relativity is the key. Look around us. Try to see things from a broader perspective. We must not just focus on what is happening now, but look beyond. How important will that activity be in an hour, tomorrow, or next week? Or also: how important is it in our life project?
• Distinguish what is urgent from what is prioritized
Caught in the dizzying pace of daily life, it's easy to end up confusing what's urgent with what's important and setting wrong priorities. Therefore, always keep in mind the things that are truly important in life and which need to be prioritized.
The word urgent comes from the Latin emergencies o urgent, so it refers to what stimulates or causes haste. However, everything that matters to us - or everything that we are told is urgent - is not necessarily important and, of course, we should not prioritize it. Making a list of the really important things and prioritizing them will allow us to compare them with the urgent ones and quickly decide what level of priority we can give them in our life.
• Consider other possibilities besides "yes" and "no"
One of the main problems when it comes to prioritizing is that it is very difficult to say no. Of course, it is difficult to say no to the people we love or to our superiors, but we must not forget that between “yes” and “no” there is a wide range of possibilities.
“Yes” is the most appropriate answer when something is obviously urgent, important and a priority. "No" is the answer to all those tasks that do not correspond to us, are not important or with which we simply do not want to compromise ourselves because they do not fall within our priorities.
But there are other alternatives we could consider:
1. Procrastination. They are those tasks that we could do, but not immediately. So it is enough to explain to the person that we would like to take charge of it, but that at this moment we cannot. Instead, we can tell him when we will be available.
2. Collaborate. They are those tasks that we are not willing to take on fully, but to which we can contribute. In these cases it is enough to explain that we are happy to help, as long as the other person cooperates.
3. Alternative solution. They are those tasks that we cannot take on in any way, but we can contribute in some way to their solution, for example by recommending an expert or software that can do part of the job.
Finally, we must keep in mind that the people around us may not be fully aware of the effort we are making. After all, it's easy to swim out of the water. Therefore, it is likely that we must "educate" them too, especially if we have always been available to them and it has always been difficult for us to say no.
Admission How to prioritize when everything seems to have priority? was published first in Corner of Psychology.
