Prioritization Strategies

Prioritization is the process of deciding the relative importance or urgency needed when faced with multiple tasks. Our coaches teach prioritization by helping clients set realistic goals and prioritize tasks based on importance and urgency.

5-Finger Breathing

When we’re feeling stressed out or overwhelmed, our brain is in an emotionally charged state that makes it much harder to think clearly or use our brain at full capacity. When this happens, the solution should be something that quickly brings our mind back to a calm baseline. One simple and effective strategy to achieve this is called 5-Finger breathing. Here's how it works.

Find a comfortable place to sit and hold up a hand. Use your index finger from your other hand and start slowly tracing the edges of your raised fingers, starting with the thumb. As you go up your thumb, inhale deeply. As you trace down your thumb, exhale fully. Continue tracing your hand as you do the same breathing pattern throughout. Do it again with the other hand for maximum effect. Feel calmer? You’ve successfully re-engaged the logical part of your brain!

5-Minute Goals

Continuing the theme of "5" strategies, 5-minute goals are a great way to take an overwhelming task and break it down into more manageable, bite-sized chunks. So how does this work?

To use 5-minute goals, select a task you need to get done, set the timer for 5-minutes, and get started! You can even try this strategy for tasks that might take more than 5 minutes as a simple way to get started. Once the timer is up, you can decide if you want to keep working on the task or take it break. After all, 5-minutes on a task is better than none at all! 

Urgency Scoring

More often than not, stress stems from the pressure we feel to complete the tasks on our to-do lists. However, we often forget to ask an important question - what's actually urgent and what can wait? When we take the time to determine which tasks or responsibilities are most urgent, we often realize that much of what we were stressing about can wait, allowing us to prioritize what truly needs immediate. One excellent strategy to determine those priorities is Urgency Scoring. Here's how it works.

Start by first writing down every task you're stressed about completing, and the give each ask a score from 1-4 based on how urgent it is (4 = most urgent, 1 = least urgent.) After you've scored all tasks, count up how many are a 3 or 4. In doing so, you've revealed which tasks need your immediate attention and which ones can wait. If you still have an overwhelming number of 3s and 4s, highlight the ones that feel most important. These will be the ones that give you the most impact for your time and should be the primary focus for your day and/or week. On the other hand, those twos and ones can probably wait. An example of these could be a routine dentist appointment or a load of laundry. After all, the world won't end if your teeth or clothes don't get cleaned for another day (at least we sure hope not!)