Four Smart Ways To Prioritize Your Work And Meet Daily Deadlines

Try juggling eight clients, managing a team of 10 and ensuring that all problems are solved in a timely manner. All while having your email inbox be inundated with over 50 new requests and questions each hour. If your workday is anywhere close to this, you want to learn smart ways to prioritize your work, pick up some good productivity tips and get it done.

For many years I worked in public relations agencies as a consultant and later as a director, managing not only clients but my internal client – aka my boss – and staff.

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I was no stranger to an insane workday, with a long list of “to-do” activities.

To keep my sanity and ensure that I met deadlines, I learned a few useful prioritization tips and productivity tips.

With working from home becoming increasingly the norm with the COVID-19 pandemic, being organized with your workload and prioritizing your tasks is more important than ever.

Since you’re reading this, you’re probably in need of some help to get all your stuff done and figure out way to prioritize your work. So read on… I hope these tips will help you as much as they did me.

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Prioritizing Your Work Helps Reduce Some Key Stresses

Some of the top reasons why people are stressed out at work are:

• The pressure to get results
• Work at “optimum levels – all the time!”
• The idea that you need to perform to succeed

With remote working, employers may be “popping” in more often to check in to see if you’re actually doing your work. I bet you’re nodding at this… it happens all the time. It happened to me in the past too!

They want to see you doing your work and not slacking off. The pressure is on!

Even though many employers are getting used to the idea of remote work, their concerns are still prevalent.

The good news is that at home you can have some more control over your time. No in-person meetings that waste time!

This means you can get more done, especially if you adopt a few key ways to prioritize your work.

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1. Create A Daily To Do List Each Morning

One of the easiest ways to prioritize your work is to create a to-do list.

The first thing I do each morning when working remotely is to open up my email inbox, get my notebook and pen and look at any new emails that have come in since the previous day.

I prioritize my tasks by:

• Deadline – does it need to be done ASAP?
• The time required to complete the job
• Whether they required extra support from my team members
• If it was a greater ask from a client that needed other steps (e.g. a team meeting, brainstorm or planning session, etc.)

The best way to note important tasks in your email inbox is with the flag system. If you can use a colour-coded flag that denotes immediate attention versus something that’s new but less important, use it!

For your physical to-do list, have one page for the little things you can do quickly, and another page for larger jobs that require more time.

This is one of the top ways to prioritize your work, as emails are one of the biggest sources of “time suck” during a typical workday.

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2. Always Time Block On Your Calendar

Whether it’s a physical calendar or a printout for a daily to-do list with time blocks, or a digital version on your computer, take the time to break up the day according to your tasks.

I always liked to do larger jobs after 10:30 a.m. when I had a chance to finish the quick and easy tasks and touched base with my boss.

When using a work calendar your fellow employees have access to:

• ALWAYS block out time that you need to focus on your tasks
• Consider labelling any time you can’t have interrupted with meetings and calls as private or with a big “WORKING ON DEADLINE – DND” (do-not-disturb) title.

The inevitable result of not doing so is that somebody will load up your day with video meetings and telephone calls, just when you’re planning to work on a big client project!

If you don’t time block on your calendar, how is somebody else supposed to know you’re busy?

When you don’t block your time, your productivity levels go down and you get stressed out trying to rush to finish on deadline.

So make time blocking one of your top ways to prioritize your work and your day.

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3. Do The Little Things In The First Hour Of The Day

Grab your morning coffee or tea and tackle the quick and easy things first.

I love this idea as one of the ways to prioritize your work, simply because you can get the small stuff done fast and out of the way.

Since you don’t have a co-worker hanging out at your desk talking about last night’s episode of your favourite show, you’ve got more time.

Perhaps, at most, if you’re working from home, you have your child or kids starting up with a bit of whining or questions.

Yet, you can easily provide them with a fun activity to do (or perhaps a much-desired activity, like TV time or tablet time), so that you can concentrate on what you need to get done.

The morning hours are the best time to concentrate for ONE HOUR on quick and easy priority items.

You can get time to focus by:

• Making this part of a strict daily routine that you set for yourself.
• Shutting the door to your home office or workspace for no distractions from others in the home.
• Turning your phone off to mute and shutting down any messaging apps on your computer.
• Keeping your child occupied with some precious screen time on an iPad. If this is a treat, they will be quiet!

4. Tap Into Handy Productivity Tools

Need to get yourself organized?

While I LOVE using a paper organizer or notebook to write down my priorities and my daily to-do list, if you’re going paperless try these out:

• Trello – a popular task list platform you can use on your desktop, online or via app. It allows you to set up lists in kanban card style, providing you with space to add details and reminders. I love this one! For individuals, the free version is enough to keep you organized and on-track of your work and your work-life.
• Todoist – an awesome online / app that helps you list your tasks and keep track of all your activities. Comes in a free simple version, and an affordable premium version that provides you with reminders and other amazing features.
• GetPlan.co – free to individuals, it’s part calendar, part task list, with links to documents (Google Drive)

Using one of these organizers, or even a simple notebook or paper pad is one of the ways to prioritize your workday and get things done!

Speed Up Your Editing And Proofreading With Grammarly

Aside from great to-do lists, look at other ways to speed up your daily work. Editing and proofreading your work can be a time suck.

This is why I love Grammarly.

It helps me quickly make edits to my spelling and grammar mistakes. It’s the best tool for anybody who writes emails, documents and presentations.

For bloggers and social media influencers, it’s a great tool to speed up your writing and content creation process.

You can use the free version of Grammarly, but the premium version helps you become a better writer with stylistic and word recommendations.

By figuring out shortcuts and ways to work smart, not harder, you can get more done in a shorter period of time. And then enjoy a longer coffee break!

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Prioritize Your Work Each Day

Just like with any good habit, making a concentrated effort to stick to your prioritization routines will help you get into a daily groove.

Not only will you be more organized and get results, but you’ll also probably find more time for a little break. No more working through lunch!

Finally, your colleagues and boss, or even your clients, will get used to your routine and will respect it over time. You may need to remind them to look at your calendar to book meetings when you haven’t time-blocked them off for big priority jobs.

So again, my top list of ways to prioritize your work:

• Do a daily to-do list of easy jobs and bigger jobs you need to tackle
• Time block on your work calendar to avoid interruptions
• Get small “low hanging fruit” taken care of first in the morning and out of the way for bigger tasks

Finally, use great online tools to help keep you organized.

I hope these productivity tips help you get yourself organized and ready to conquer the day!

QUESTION: What are some ways you prioritize your work that might be useful to others?

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