How to Set Priorities_NEW

>> In this lecture, we'll be talking about priorities, what they are, how to identify high-priority tasks, how to leverage your time by focusing on high-priority items, and how to categorize your to-do list in order of priority. It's important to remember that in addition to the priorities we have in our businesses, we also have priorities in our day to day. This includes things like kids, family, our full-time jobs, pets, health and fitness, and more. I'd like to ask you to take a moment to reflect now on the priorities that currently exist in your life. What's most important to you? What do you need to get done on a daily basis? Now think about where your business falls on that spectrum. Do you make a lot of time for your business or does it tend to fall on the back-burner as you keep up with everyday life? In order to succeed in business, you have to make your business a higher priority. That doesn't have to mean neglecting other things which are important to you or working on your business instead of your work during office hours, this just means, make a more conscious effort to create time for your business. We've talked already about setting boundaries. This is a great way to create time for your business. Have you ever gotten to the end of the day and thought, "Where did the day go?" Often, we are completely unaware of where our time is going. We have so much going on that the day flies by without us noticing or having the time to complete our daily list of to-dos. I'd like to encourage you to take an honest look at your time. Do you frequently find yourself getting distracted by the Facebook News Feed or latest Instagram posts? Do you check your email multiple times an hour? Are you zoning out in front of the TV at night? This week, use a notebook or app to help you keep track of where your time is going. We've included some links in the Tools to Limit Distractions and Increase Productivity handout. By taking an honest look at how you spend your time, you can pinpoint areas where you have, what we like to call, a time leak, time that's being used on something that's not productive or adding value to your life. At the end of the week, refer to your list to see where you're spending time on things that aren't productive or adding value to your life. Aim to limit the amount of time you spend on these activities moving forward. Once you've identified your time leaks, you can make a more conscious effort to eliminate those leaks and focus your attention instead on your priorities. A common question for entrepreneurs and business owners who are just starting out is "How do I know what to focus on?" Often, we have so many ideas for what we'd like to do in our businesses. You learned a lot in the Health Coach Training Program and possibly through other trainings about building a business, marketing, sales, networking, so where do you start? There are numerous schools of thought around setting priorities. We'll talk about three of our favorites in this lecture. One, Big Rocks. Two, Eat That Frog. And three, The Power Hour. In the Health Coach Training Program, we've taught you the Big Rocks theory. Big Rocks is based on the simplest aspect of priority setting. Focus on the high-leverage tasks first, then moving on to the less important tasks. How do you determine what the highest leverage tasks are? Ask yourself the following questions and write down the answers so you can see which tasks will make the most of your time. One, what would make the biggest impact on my bottom line? This may be reaching out directly to your potential clients, connecting with a potential referral partner, or pitching an organization about a speaking opportunity. Two, what would make the biggest impact for my clients? Well, perhaps this is creating an online program that introduces them to the world of health coaching, opening up more spots in your private coaching practice, or writing a workbook that you can offer to potential and current clients to help them reach their health and wellness goals. Three, what is the easiest and least expensive tool I can implement that will bring in the best results? Well, some examples include taking on new private coaching clients or offering online coaching sessions. Both of these examples take very little time to set up and cost next to nothing to start offering. For example, writing a book would not be considered a high-leverage task as it takes a lot of time and energy upfront with results only showing up later on. That's not to say that writing a book isn't a worthwhile venture, but it may not be one of your big rocks. Following up with a lead or pitching a guest post to the media would be considered a good example of a high-leverage task. Participating in a speaking gig that gets you in front of your ideal audience would be another high-leverage task. Using the Big Rocks principle, you would make a list of your high-priority tasks, big rocks, medium priority tasks, medium rocks, and lower priority tasks, little rocks. Example of medium rocks would be a task like writing your newsletter and setting it up or setting up social media posts for the week. Little rocks would be tasks like updating your website, redesigning your business cards, or creating the perfect greeting card to send to clients. These are things that are nice touches, things that would be nice to get done, but aren't necessary to get done. They don't directly impact your bottom line. And once you've made your list of big, medium, and little rocks, you would then start with the big rocks, move on to the medium rocks, and then, finally, tackle those little rocks. The second priority management tool we're talking about is called Eat That Frog. Eat That Frog is based on the book of the same name by Brian Tracy. The book is based on a quote from Mark Twain that says, "If you eat a frog first thing in the morning, that will probably be the worst thing you do all day." Tracy took this saying to a whole new level in his book. The basic idea behind Eat That Frog is to do the things you are procrastinating most, the things you really don't want to do, which are often the things you most need to do first thing in the morning so that it's out of the way and you can then focus on other tasks. In practice, this might look like taking an hour first thing in the morning to email prospects, pitch for guest posts, interviews or media appearances, and call potential referral partners. The third priority management tool we want to share with you is called The Power Hour, which was created by Brook Noel author of "The Change Your Life Challenge." This is a great way to manage your priorities because it allows you to focus on one project at a time. The Power Hour is simply one hour of uninterrupted time that you use to focus on tasks. This practice is especially helpful if you work from home. You can set a timer and sit down to work on whatever project that is most in need of your attention. You can use this time to write a blog, a newsletter, a guest post, to create the opt-in offer on your website, or set up the marketing for your next workshop or even your tele-class. If a project you're working on cannot be completed in an hour, break it down into smaller tasks. So instead of saying "Create new group program," you might spend your power hour deciding what to offer as part of the program, writing the outline for the program, writing copy for the sales page, or reaching out to potential affiliate partners to promote your program. To recap, we talked about the importance of not only setting priorities in your business but making your business a priority in your life. We talked about how setting boundaries and blocking time leaks can help you to create more time to work on your business. Then we discussed three different ways of setting and managing your priorities. The first was Big Rocks. The second was Eat That Frog, which encourages you to focus on the biggest tasks on your to-do list that you least want to do. And the third was The Power Hour where in you set aside an hour to focus uninterrupted on a project. All three of these priority management tools are included on the Manage Your Priorities worksheet, which you can find in the Learning Center. Try these practices out for yourself and let us know how it goes in the Facebook group.