How to prioritise life
Nine things I've learnt about time management, to-do lists and productivity that actually work
There will never be enough time to get everything done. Best you make peace with that right now. Also, understand that time is the most precious resource you possess. Redeem it wisely.
Prioritisation. Pressing the point home, according to author Oliver Burkeman, we have approximately 4000 weeks of life gifted to us, assuming we live to see our eightieth birthday. Therefore, what’s vital is to work out what is the most important thing that you want to achieve — whether work project, writing a book, teaching your child to swim or learning Mandarin — and then prioritise that.
Don’t sweat the undone stuff. Because prioritisation is everything, this means other stuff will fall by the wayside — answering emails, cleaning the oven, reading Tolstoy. Best you make peace with that now too. Block out weekly time for the most important thing, and do not allow anyone else’s urgent, or a displacement activity like cleaning the grout in the bathroom, to interrupt your flow.
Ta done, rather than to do. Sometimes it’s quicker to just ‘do’ a thing than it is to add it to a ‘to do’ list.