Overview

The latest tools and techniques for accomplishing more in less time with fewer resources.

In today’s competitive global environment—where people at all levels need to accomplish more, in less time, with fewer resources—the ability to manage priorities is a key element in personal and professional success. How to Manage Your Priorities, Second Edition, provides managers, team leaders, professionals, and others in the workplace with the tools to master this essential business skill.

The second edition, revised and updated with a new chapter on technology-based tools for identifying and organizing priorities, teaches managers the critical benefits of managing their priorities and removing the obstacles that interfere with success.

Course Objective: Acquire strategies to identify and manage key priorities, achieve objectives, improve the quality of work and reduce stress

Selected Learning Objectives

• Identify what’s important

• Accomplish more in less time, with fewer resources

• Manage your workload to improve your working relationships

• Organize a task or project so outcomes meet expectations and objectives

• Collaborate with others to make sure deadlines are necessary and reasonable

• Improve the quality of your work and reduce stress

• Master key strategies for prioritizing tasks and activities

• Practice the best planning and scheduling techniques

• Use technology to manage your priorities: planning and scheduling tools, project management software, PDAs, organizing systems

Testing Format

This course contains one multiple choice test valued at one Continuing Education Unit (CEU).

Table of Contents

About This Course

How to Take This Course

Pre-Test

1. Why Learn to Manage Your Priorities? 1

What It Means to Manage Your Priorities

Why Learn to Manage Your Priorities?

The Benefits of Managing Your Priorities

More Productive Working Relationships

Better Outcomes and Fewer Time-consuming Mistakes

Improved Chances for Achieving Goals

Increased Productivity

Improved Work/Life Balance

Reduced Stress and Improved Health

What Gets in the Way?

Failure to Identify Clearly What Is Important

Vague Goals and Expected Outcomes

Lack of Planning

Poor Communication

Conflicting and/or Unexpected Needs and Demands

Failure to Recognize and Respond to Change

Lack of Resources

Striving for Perfection, Not for Results

Failure to Think Creatively

Organizational Problems

What You Will Learn in This Course

Recap

Review Questions

2. How to Know What Is Important 15

Why Focus on Goals?

Linking Goals and Priorities

Make Your Goals SMART Goals

Relating Tasks and Activities to Goals and Consequences

Consider Tasks and Activities in Terms of Goals

Consider Tasks and Activities in Terms of Consequences

Recognizing What Is Urgent and What Is Not

1. Urgent and Important

2. Not Urgent but Important

3. Urgent but Not Important

4. Not Urgent and Not Important

Recognizing What Activities Have Greater Value

Being Efficient Versus Being Effective

Recap

Review Questions

3. Strategies for Managing Your Priorities 33

Use a System

Focus on the Outcome and Clarify Expectations

Guidelines for Focusing on the Outcome and Clarifying Expectations

Evaluating Available Resources

Determine What You Can Stop Doing

Identify What No Longer Needs to Be Done

Delegate Work You Do Not Need to Do Yourself

Reduce Interruptions

Anticipate Problems

Manage Conflicting Priorities

Take Care of Yourself and Manage Stress

Warning Signs of Stress

How to Take Care of Yourself

Recap

Review Questions

4. Planning and Scheduling 51

What Action Planning and Scheduling Can Accomplish

Components of an Action Plan

What Is the Expected Outcome and What Is the Deadline?

What Activities Are Necessary to Achieve the Outcome?

What Resources Are Needed and Where Will They Come From?

Who Else Needs to Be Involved and What Is the Nature of Their Involvement?

What Factors Might Influence or Constrain the Way the Outcome Is Achieved?

What Is the Sequence of Key Activities and What Are the Progress Checkpoints?

Who Will Do What?

What Problems Might Come Up and What Will Be Done to Handle Them?

When Don’t You Need an Action Plan?

Scheduling

Realistically Estimate the Time Needed to Complete Each Task and Activity

Identify Activities that Can Be Clustered

Decide When You Do Your Best Thinking

Leave “Lag” Time in Your Schedule

Include Time for Thinking and Reflecting

Allocate Sufficient Time for “Important, Not Urgent” Activities as well as

“Urgent and Important” Activities

Build in Personal Time

Review and Revise Your Schedules Regularly

How to Build a Schedule

What If There Really Is Not Enough Time?

Recap

Review Questions

5. Working Efficiently 71

What It Means to Work Efficiently

Obstacles to Working Efficiently

Doing Things You Enjoy Instead of Those that Move You Towards Your Goals

Using E-Mail Unproductively

Unnecessary Interruptions

Disorganization

Managing by Crisis

Inefficient Delegation

Saying “Yes” to Everything

Unnecessary or Poorly Planned Meetings

Procrastination

Doing Things That Do Not Need to Be Done

Tracking Your Time Wasters

Strategies for Working More Efficiently

Decide What You Can Stop Doing

Reduce Interruptions

Check Your E-Mail on a Schedule

Reflect on Your Day Before It Begins

Revise Your Priorities, If Necessary

Seek Help

Keep Up with Routine Work

Delegating Successfully

Tips for Delegating Work

Using E-Mail Productively

Tips for Using E-Mail Productively

Recap

Review Questions

6. Using Technology to Manage Your Priorities 91

Tools to Help You Manage Your Priorities

Computer Applications for Organizing and Scheduling

Computer Applications for Managing Your Goals and Projects

Tools for Working Remotely

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)

Teleconferencing System

Instant Messaging (IM)

Text Messaging

Palm Pilot

BlackBerry

Pocket PC

Personal Information Manager (PIM)

Short Message Service (SMS)

Common Problems When Using Technology-Based Tools

Reducing Technology-Based Problems

How to Learn More About Technology-Based Tools

Recap

Review Questions

Bibliography

Post-Test

Index