How To Prioritize Your Goals

Okay, so where are we now in the formula? Number one, we design the mission statement for your life. Number two, we identify the gaps in the key areas of your life that keep you from accomplishing your mission. Number three, we set a series of goals that put you on the path to accomplishing your mission. Number four, we have a plan with action items to achieve the goals. But do we really need to complete all of the actions to achieve the plan? Let's see. Next step is to prioritize. Prioritize the actions in our plan. First, a word on prioritization. Though this is perhaps the most important key to the whole process. Time. Time is our most limited resource. We want to get the highest return on it. The way to do that is to prioritize those actions and goals that have the greatest impact per unit of time on our mission. We shouldn't be spending our time on actions that have a lesser impact than those with a greater impact. That's what happens when you procrastinate. An important rule that is used when it comes to prioritizing where you should be spending your time is the 8020 rule. Also called the Pareto principle. The 8020 rule states that 20% of the actions you take comprise 80% of the progress towards completion of that goal. So the key is to figure out which 20% of the actions to take. Many times 80% is enough enough of the way they are to be fulfilled. We want to avoid perfectionism since there's really no such thing as being perfect. Right? Regardless though, it's just plain smarter to at least first do those action items that get you the closest to achieving your goals in the most efficient and effective manner. Warren Buffett and Greg McKeon, they all have some really interesting takes on that. Something you might research a little bit more. The moral of the story, Focus on the highest priority action items first. Alright, so here's an example of the 8020 rule. In practice, of this list of 10 action items, two are deemed to be the most important towards achieving the goal of losing £100. If the 8020 rule work, and I've tried it before, it does work, then taking these two actions will lead to a loss of 80 of the 100 pound weight loss goal. I haven't tried that particular one, but I tried it in some business settings. Here's how you prioritize a list. Compare the first action list to the second action. Ask if there were only two actions to take, which would have the greatest impact on your goal. If the second action has a greater impact than the first action, then that action becomes the new number one. Otherwise, move on to compare the first action to the third action, and so on. Do this for all the items in list until you prioritize them all. Once complete, start with the second action item and compare that one to all the other ones in the list. Just keep following that same process. Prioritize each of the actions for your goal. The idea is to come up with your top two. You can prioritize the prioritizing a list method that we just talked about to find the top two prioritized actions for each goal. If your list is 10 items, then following the 8020 rule, these first two will get you 80% of the way towards achieving your goal. For many goals, that might be good enough. If the time and energy required for the other eight actions, an additional 20% will keep you from focusing on other higher priorities. Let's think first about setting some deadlines. First of all though, why are deadlines important? Well, deadlines create a sense of urgency, which creates emotion, can be panic or excitement, which creates energy, which creates action, which busts through procrastination, which also forces you to focus like a laser, which results in a higher level of creativity from being in the flow state. I'm in one right now, and this results in a better work product. Deadlines also, right? They help you to prioritize. They force you to ruthlessly eliminate those things that you don't have time for and to sequence those things that are time sensitive. Deadlines for our purposes are two levels. One at the goal level and next at the action level. Remember, sequence can impact deadlines also, which may impact prioritization. Just keep that in mind. Step nine is to set a start line at both the overall goal level and also at the action item level. And finally, step 10 is to set a deadline at both the overall goal level and also at the action item level. After you're done with your goals and your plans, you've got all these action items. You want to move the action items to the master plan in your workbook. For each of the areas of your life, you're going to have three three goals and two actions per goal. In other words, you would have 30 goals and 60 actions. Assuming you set three goals for each area and came up with actions for each goal.