9
SET PRIORITIES
Wisdom ofttimes consists of knowing what to do next.
—HERBERT HOOVER
Knowing what your goals are is one thing. Knowing how to attain them is another. To reach the goals you’ve set, you must learn to direct your efforts in a systematic way. This calls for setting priorities and planning your actions around the priorities.
PROACTIVE VERSUS REACTIVE APPROACHES
What should take priority in your daily life? You can take either a reactive or a proactive approach. The reactive approach allows circumstances to set your priorities. The proactive approach allows you to set your own priorities.
In Chapter 4, you learned to perform situational triage to determine in what general areas you would direct your energies. You learned that effective people direct their efforts toward situations that they can influence, and that are worth influencing. Now you need to establish your priorities in dealing with those situations.
IMPORTANT VERSUS URGENT
Your choices can be weighed by asking two basic questions:
- What is most important?
- What is most urgent?
Important choices are those that move you toward your goals. Urgent choices are those that demand immediate attention. The fewer urgent choices you have, the more time and energy you have to focus on the important choices.
Urgent choices come in the form of things that must be dealt with immediately to avoid undesirable consequences. They’re best illustrated by the man who protested, “How can I concentrate on draining the swamp when I’m up to my waist in alligators?” Many people spend so much time and energy fighting off individual alligators that they never get around to the main task, which is the draining of the swamp.
You encounter this dilemma in people who say, “I’d like to buy a new home, but I’m behind in my rent payments. If I don’t catch up, I’ll be evicted. That doesn’t leave me any money to put aside for a down payment.” The rent payment is an urgent matter: If it isn’t made, you won’t have a place to live next month. But in the long run, more important than the month-to-month rent is the investment opportunity and long-term security to be enjoyed through home ownership.
How do you prevent the urgent from crowding out the important in your system of priorities? One way is to plan ahead so that matters never reach the urgent stage.
Three Levels of Problems
Problems tend to move through stages, each with its own level of urgency. Level One is the proactive stage. At this point, the problem is just developing. You have plenty of time to deal with it, and only minor corrective action is needed to return things to normal.
If the problem is not addressed, it moves into Level Two—the reactive stage. At this point, some damage has probably been done, and it will have to be repaired before you can return things to normal. But the situation is not yet hopeless. Level Two problems, left unattended, descend to Level Three—the crisis stage. At this point, you can no longer ignore the problem. Unless you do something immediately, the situation will become a disaster.
Drifting with the Current
To illustrate, imagine yourself fishing from a rowboat in a placid stream. You’re aware that the current is slowly taking you downstream, but you know that you can drop an anchor at any time and stop the drifting. A few easy strokes of the oars will take you back to where you started. You are in the proactive stage at this point.
After allowing yourself to drift for a while, you become aware that the current is getting stronger. In the distance, you hear a faint murmur that tells you there’s a waterfall ahead. You are now in the reactive phase. You can still drop anchor and stop the drift, but only with great difficulty will you be able to row back to your starting point. It may be necessary to row ashore and haul the boat overland. Intent on your fishing, though, you decide to drift a little further.
Soon the murmur of the falls has become a deafening roar and the current has become a raging torrent. You can no longer propel your boat against it, and the anchor won’t stop you. Ahead of you, the water surges over the falls. Unless you do something immediately, you will plunge over the falls, too—perhaps to your death. You are now at the crisis stage.
Drifting into Financial Trouble
Events in your life can follow this same pattern. You begin to make a few credit purchases that seem well within your budget. You know that you can pay them off in a few months and begin building up your savings again.
Then the economy dips and your income shrinks. Still, you’re not strapped, and you buy a few more things on your credit card, just to maintain your standard of living. Then you have some unexpected automobile repairs, and since you need your car to take you to work, you have to make them. You skip a rent payment to keep the car running. You’re now in the reactive stage.
An unexpected illness puts you in the hospital, and you lose several weeks of work. You use up your sick leave, and the bills keep coming due. The landlord threatens to evict you, the bank threatens to repossess the car, and the boss says unless you’re back on the job soon she’ll be forced to replace you. You’re entering the crisis stage.
Avoiding the Crisis Stage
Some people seem to live constantly in the crisis stage. Others seem to go through life avoiding the rough times. How do they do it? By addressing problems while they’re still in the proactive stage. This prevents unimportant things from turning into urgent situations that divert your time and attention away from important things.
Sometimes you have to clear the decks of urgent matters by accepting the undesirable consequences and moving on. If paying the rent on your present place is driving you to the financial brink, it may be necessary to move into less expensive accommodations until you have put your financial affairs in order. It may be necessary to drive a less expensive car, eat out less often, and cut down on your entertainment budget. These sacrifices require self-discipline, but you can muster the self-discipline if you have created a glowing vision and if you can see how the sacrifices help you to reach goals that lead toward the vision.
Successful people learn to pass up immediate pleasures in return for more gratifying long-term pleasures. They do the dull and unglamorous things that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. By doing so, they avoid the recurring crises that result from neglecting things of long-term importance.
Focusing on What’s Important
If you give priority to the important things and remain in the proactive mode, you’ll find yourself giving increased attention to such things as building relationships, new career opportunities, problem prevention, and family values.
Building relationships is an important key to personal success. No one is truly a self-made person. Human society is built on cooperation, and we need to be able to count on the assistance of others.
Studies have shown an interesting difference between the behavior of high achievers and mediocre performers in the workplace. Both the star performers and the mediocre ones look to others for assistance. But the star performers form networks before they need assistance. When the time comes to call for outside help, they know where to look. Mediocre performers, on the other hand, wait until they need help before looking around for assistance.
In other words, star performers look after the important things before they become urgent things.
HANDLING THE ROUTINE
All of us have to perform routine tasks that are not particularly important, but that nevertheless must be done if we’re to accomplish our work. We have to open mail, attend meetings, answer telephone calls, and deal with problems that others bring to our doorsteps. Successful people learn to budget time for these chores, delegating routine tasks to other people when possible, and saving the bulk of their time for addressing the truly important issues.
Develop a System
Effective people also learn to ask, “Is this necessary?” Do you need to conduct a three-week study of a proposal when you already know most of what you need to know about it? If the study is nothing more than a formality, why not dispense with the formality and concentrate on things with higher priority? Do you need to compile a fifty-page written report when the important information can be conveyed through a concise memo or a conversation over coffee?
You can relieve yourself of unimportant tasks by systematizing as much of your routine work as possible. For instance, if you have to write a lot of letters in response to inquiries, you can probably divide the inquiries into a few basic categories. Then, instead of having to compose a new letter for each individual inquiry, you could write a form letter for each type of inquiry. Stored on your computer, these letters could be called up and, with minor modification, used to answer nearly all of your inquiries.
End the Paper Shuffling
A great deal of valuable time is wasted shuffling papers. I’ve worked out a system that gets me through this chore in short order and clears my desk for the truly important things.
When a letter comes across my desk, I read it and decide quickly whether I should handle it or refer it to someone else for action. If it’s something for someone else to handle, I write appropriate notes on the letter and immediately send it to the person who will handle it.
If it’s something I need to handle, I take the appropriate action. I then respond to all the mail I plan to answer, filing as I go those letters I need to keep and discarding those I have no reason to keep. When I’ve finished, I’m ready to tackle the important work.
The important work consists of doing the things you need to do to move you toward your goal. You establish your priorities by asking, “What needs to be done next if I am to move closer to my goal?” List the things that must take place before you reach your goal. Arrange them in the order in which they need to occur. When you’ve done this, you’re ready to develop strategies for achieving your goals.