What is important and what is less important?

When you have to learn to prioritize your tasks, the first step is to distinguish the important from the less important. Most people are used to distinguishing between urgent and non-urgent tasks. But in a way, it is equally valid to distinguish in this way, because if you are constantly running after urgent tasks that are not important, you are wasting valuable time. Therefore, use the prioritization mechanism and find out whether a task is important or not. Important tasks bring you closer to the goal, and you must therefore rank the tasks according to which will bring you to the goal the fastest.

Go for the excellent

One way to save time in your task solving is to cut down on perfectionism. If you strive for perfection, you will never be finished, because there will always be a comma that can be put differently. Being a perfectionist is a lot of work and it eats up a lot of unnecessary time. Instead, focus on the excellent that is achievable. The result is excellent when it is understandable and useful in the right context and for the recipients.

The daily plan

There are several ways to manage your daily tasks. It is always a good idea to make a to-do list of your tasks and when you rank them according to the prioritization method; important and not important, it is a good help to have at hand. There is also something satisfying about being able to cross out a task or delete it from your to-do list when it is finished.

Download a to-do list here and get started right away.

There are several tools for structuring and prioritizing tasks that you can use directly on the computer. Outlook or Lotus Note both have task functions, where you can pull emails directly from the inbox and thus create to-do lists. You can also enter tasks into the list yourself. If you are a MAC user, Producteev is a good tool.

Work concentrated for 20 min. at a time

Pomodoro is a technique that helps you stay focused by working for 20 minutes. at a time on the same task. The egg timer or another timer is set to 20 min., and only one task is worked on. If you need 20 min. more, you just reset the clock. Some tasks can be difficult to get rid of, but be careful not to become too much of a perfectionist.

Find more good tools to prioritize your time and tasks here.

Meetings eat up your time

It's no secret that meetings can be time-consuming. Everyone has tried to sit in on a meeting that just drags on, and you may also be in doubt as to why you have been called to this meeting. There is often a lack of structure and someone talks way too much, while others don't get to say what they want to say. In order to deal with all these things, it is important that you agree on how the meetings in your company should proceed.

There are three things you need to consider:

Are you even going to hold this meeting? The meetings must be mapped out, and that way you can free up time. You must find out who should participate in the meeting, how often that type of meeting must be held and how long it must take. An employee costs on average DKK 600 per hour, so meetings can quickly become a costly affair if they run wild and if the "wrong" employees attend. It is not forbidden to opt out of an employee, it just has to be done in a respectful way, and the arguments for why he or she should no longer be at the meeting must be in place, so that the employee does not feel excluded on a negative basis.

What should a meeting notice look like? You must set up a fixed agenda with expectations and requirements for the participants. Is there a discussion planned or do they just have to listen at the meeting? How long will the meeting take? The participants must know all this in advance so that they are well prepared.

Can you make any fixed rules or routines before, during and after the meeting? It is a good idea to set up rules for good behavior at the meeting. This ensures that it does not go off track. If it is expected, for example, that the submitted material has been read before the meeting, as it is taken up for discussion, there is no point in coming to the meeting if you have not read it. You're just wasting your own and other people's time. How can you interrupt each other? Is there a word manager with a bell? Or does each participant get a speaking card that they hold up when they want to invite in? The ideas are many and simple, and they aim to ensure that everyone is heard equally.

Here (video) you can find templates for making meetings more efficient.