What Should I Do First?

If you're like me, there never seems to be a lack of things To-Do.  A quote I keep on my desk by Henry David Thoreau says, "It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants.  The question is:  what are we busy about?"

Now, the question for me has always been, what first?  Everything seems so important that where to start is the issue.  Let's look at the major things on your list - the things that aren't dependent on something else.  As an example, you may have on your list to organize your warehouse by product line, as well as acquiring a warehouse.  Well, you can see getting the warehouse will have to happen before it can be organized.  The first item is dependent on getting the second item.  We want to start with the things on our list that don't have dependencies.

Once you have a list of the major things on your To-Do list, let's rank them on their Likelihood and Importance.

For each of the major items on your To-Do list, answer four questions, rating each on a scale of 1 to 5.

Likelihood (hard/many = 1, easy/few = 5)

Importance (not important = 1, very important = 5)

Let's look at a few examples to see how this works.

To-Do List                                       Likelihood        Importance

Add your two Likelihood scores together, then, add your your two Importance scores together.

Items from the To-Do list will fit into one of four groups to help identify the highest priorities.    In the first group, we'll put any To-Do items with a combined Likelihood score of 5 or greater and a combined Importance score of 5 or greater.  We call this the PRIORITY group.  These are items that are relatively easy to complete, take few resources AND completing the item is both important to your current customers and to your bottom line.  In our example, 'Delegate bookkeeping" falls into this group.

In the next group, put any To-Do items with a combined Likelihood score of 5 or less and a combined Importance score of 5 or greater.  This is the MAYBE group.  In our example, "Find suitable warehouse space" is in this group.

In the third group, put any To-Do items with a combined Likelihood score of 5 or greater and a combined Importance score of 5 or less.  This is the MAYBE NOT group.  "Hire executive assistant" in our example falls into this group.

And finally, in the last group, put any To-Do items with a combined Likelihood score of 5 or less and a combined Importance score of 5 or less.  This is the DON'T BOTHER group.  The example that falls into this group is "Color-code files."

If this is beginning to sound like wah-wah-wah - the way adults sound in Charlie Brown movies - perhaps this form will help.  What I like about this process is having a systematic way of selecting the items with the highest payoffs.

After all, most of us are very good at being busy.  But, just like the ants, "What are we busy about?"