So you have this big list with all your passions and projects and you have a big bucket with all things that you still want to do, and all your ideas on paper, in your computer and still in your head. Now how to know what to do first?
This is a question that often came back in a recent survey I did. And why is this important? Well, as you were asking how to prioritise, you already felt intuitively that it was something you should do. In this article I will give you all the reasons why.
Some of the reasons, you’ve probably known for a long time. Well, and some of them, might probably surprise you, but the list below will give you the advantages you get from setting priorities between all your passions and projects. So, here we go:
The 7 main reasons for setting priorities
Why is it important to set priorities?
- First of all, instead of having this huge overwhelming list, you can narrow down to a list of only a few projects to focus on for now and you leave the rest for later.
- As you only focus on a few projects, you spectacularly increase your chances to be successful.
- You’re not spreading yourself too thinly, doing bits and pieces on a lot of different things and finally getting nowhere.
- By setting priorities you avoid wasting your resources: your time, energy and money.
- You will be able to finish your projects earlier, which will motivate you and give you more self-confidence for your next projects.
- Your goals will be more clear and you will have a much better understanding of the direction in which you want to go.
- When you have a bit of time to work on your projects, you will know exactly on which project to work.
The 7 main excuses for not setting priorities
For us multi-potentialites, setting priorities is very counter-intuitive, isn’t it?
We want to do it all, at once. And when we start setting priorities, all kinds of old fears start coming up:
- Help, by narrowing down, I must say “Goodbye” to all other ideas and projects! Of course not! Your other projects will be done later. Also, priorities are not set in stone. Quite the opposite, you should review them let’s say monthly or bimonthly or, whenever necessary. In fact you can change them anytime you want.
- Help, I will miss out on other interesting things that suddenly come up and now I will not be able to explore those new ideas. That really would be a shame. But you can always write down your new ideas, keep links to interesting websites, titles of books to read etc. Write down just enough information to remember what it was about. Then in a next run of setting priorities, you can give this new idea the priority you want. Or, you can do them when you have some free ‘ME-time’.
- Help, I don’t want to choose between my projects. I love them all.I know, it feels like killing your babies, but in fact it’s quite the opposite. By setting priorities, you’re babies (read projects) have more chance to survive and to be successful.
- Help, I might get bored! Oh oh, this is a big one. As soon as the challenge is gone, it’s not interesting anymore. Well, you can finish the task you were working on or achieve the next milestone and then shift priorities. You don’t need to stay on something you’re not enjoying anymore.
- Help, I might be successful! I’m so used to failure, that’s my comfort zone. I really don’t know how to handle success! Well, start getting used to success, step by step; and if needed, baby step by baby step. Accomplish a task successfully and enjoy the result, then go to the next milestone and then the next one. Get some confidence and you will see… success tastes very good. And no special skills are needed to handle it, just enjoy…
- Help, if I set priorities, then I can’t do project X, Y or Z. I promised to do this project. I owe it to my family, I must help my friend out, my clients or my boss count on me, yada, yada yada… Are we starting to feel guilty? Guilty of what? Of course you can help people out. Treat this just as another project and set the right priority for it.
- Help, some things will never get done. Well yes, it is possible that low priority things never get done. But…. they’re LOW priority! That means that there are other projects and tasks with a higher priority that do get done. This means that these things with a higher priority are far more important. If you still think that these low priority things need to be done, well then you give them a higher priority so they move up in your ranking and get done eventually. It is so simple.
If you really want to do something, you will find a way. And if you don’t, you will find excuses. I guess this works in this case just the same. I gave you all the reasons why prioritising your projects is a good idea. And I also gave you all the excuses you can use 😉 But I don’t recommend to use the excuses. By doing so, the only result you will get is that the status quo remains. No change will ever be made.
And the one thing to do next…
But if you do want things to change, if you want to prioritise your projects, if you do want to stop wasting your time, energy and money and if you do want to finish your passion projects successfully, then there’s only one thing to do next.
So, what is the next step? Well, I created a special mini-course on ‘How to setup your passions portfolio in 5 easy steps’. In this mini-course I tell you exactly how you can set priorities between all your passions and projects. And the best news is: it’s FREE!
You can subscribe to the mini-course ‘How to setup your passions portfolio in 5 easy steps’ by entering your name and email address and by clicking the ‘Subscribe’ button in the form below. Get access immediately and start learning how to set priorities and how to setup your passions portfolio in a few minutes.
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