Paula Rizzo explains how to distinguish real priorities from busy work, then build your to-do list around them. She suggests writing the list the night before, structuring your day by when you work best, and doing prep work first. Sleep and key clients are priorities worth protecting.
Hey guys, it's Paula Rizzo from ListProducer.com. So one of the questions that I get about making to-do lists are, "How do you prioritize?" And so many people say to me, "Oh, everything is a priority," right? Have you said that before? Are you one of those people? Raise your hand if you've been like, "Oh, how do I prioritize when everything is a priority?" No, not everything is a priority. Let's just be honest with ourselves. Not everything is priority. Say that over and over. Not everything is a priority. And I think the way that you can really prioritize is to think about, let's see, what is it that's most important for your job, for your life, for whatever? Like, let's say you sit down, it's, you know, the beginning of a new year, beginning of a new month, whatever it is, and you say, you know what, I haven't been sleeping right, and so to me, sleep is a priority. So sleep gets pushed to the number one part of my list of my, you know, of my day. And so if something is going to interfere with that big thing that I really need to do, I'm not gonna do it, or I'm gonna push it back, or I'm gonna ask someone else to do it, or whatever it is, because my priority is sleep. That's what my priority is this month, this year, whatever. Same thing at work, right? What's your priority? You have one big client, that's the priority, and everything else kind of like falls to the wayside. I mean, I think if you set intentions and you're able to say like, this is actually what the real priorities this week are— if you have like maybe an audit that you do at the end of the week and say, okay, next What are the big things that I need to work on, that I need to make sure? You know, for me it would be something like, oh, you know, I have a shoot, I have to go out in the field, I have to interview some people for something for work. I'm a TV producer by day. You know, those are the priorities. I need to make sure that I have, you know, all of the new ideas for this month's, you know, whatever, down on paper. That's a priority. So sometimes doing a little prep work beforehand helps out. I also like to do a before lunch, after lunch priority for my to-do list. So when I write my list, remember, I write it the night the day before. When I write that list, I think about my day and I kind of pre-plan it and I prepare it on my list, on my to-do list. So I think about like, what are the things that need to happen before lunch when, for me, I'm my most creative? I find that before lunch I'm able to write a lot more, I'm able to kind of, you know, talk to a lot of people if I need to. So I'll schedule like very important interviews or very important meetings before lunch. And then after lunch, I'm not that great. Like, I'm a little sluggish, so maybe I'll do, you know, a few phone calls or pre-interviews or things like that after lunch. And I set that up because that's for me, that's my productivity style, that's how I work best. So once you kind of tap into what's most important to you, you know, professionally and personally, it's much easier to prioritize and not feel like everything's a priority, everybody needs my attention. No, no, no. You're very laser-focused. You know now what's actually a priority and what can wait. Let me know what you think. Email me at paula@lizproducer.com and, you know, let me know how this priority thing works for you. See you later.
