{"id":9998,"date":"2017-06-05T08:55:48","date_gmt":"2017-06-05T12:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alifeofproductivity.com\/?p=9998"},"modified":"2022-09-01T15:50:06","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T15:50:06","slug":"a-simple-activity-to-define-your-work-priorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chrisbailey.com\/a-simple-activity-to-define-your-work-priorities\/","title":{"rendered":"A simple activity to define your work priorities"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='et-box et-tick'>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class='et-box-content'><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><b class=\"takeaway\">Takeaway:<\/b> To define your work priorities, write down your top 25 career goals, and choose the five that are most important to you. Look at the 20 goals you didn&#8217;t pick. As Warren Buffet suggests, you should avoid these at all costs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong class=\"readingtime\">Estimated Reading Time:<\/strong> 1 minutes, 35s.<\/span><\/div><\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-9999\" src=\"https:\/\/chrisbailey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/notepad-1192373-1279x1680-305x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"305\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p>One of my favorite nuggets of wisdom from the book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1501111108\/?tag=aloproductivity-20\"><em>Grit<\/em><\/a>, by Angela Duckworth, has to do with defining our priorities at work. Most of us have a number of priorities that compete for our limited time, attention, and energy. In <em>Grit<\/em>, Angela proposes a simple technique originally suggested by Warren Buffett as a way to sort your priorities:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">&#8220;First, you write down a list of twenty-five career goals.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">Second, you do some soul-searching and circle the five highest-priority goals. Just five.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">Third, you take a good hard look at the twenty goals you didn&#8217;t circle. These you avoid at all costs. They&#8217;re what distract you; they eat away time and energy, taking your eye from the goals that matter more.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">Angela was skeptical when she first heard this technique. \u201cI thought, \u2018<em>Who could have as many as 25 different career goals? That\u2019s kind of ridiculous, isn\u2019t it?\u2019<\/em> Then I started writing down on a piece of lined paper all of the projects I\u2019m currently working on. When I got to line 32, I realized that I could benefit from this exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You might be surprised by what you find, too. Becoming more productive is just as much about what you <em>don&#8217;t<\/em> work on as it is about what you do. The most productive people don&#8217;t only manage their time, attention, and energy\u2014they&#8217;re also ruthless in defending their time against less important commitments.<\/p>\n<div class='et-box et-tick'>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class='et-box-content'><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>One quick suggestion<\/strong><strong> if you decide to do this exercise<\/strong>: after you capture your goals, be sure to reflect on how many of them are related and can be consolidated!<\/span><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s both a to-do and to-don\u2019t list for your future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9999,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"\u00a0\r\n\r\n[box type=\"tick\"]<span style=\"color: #000000;\"><b class=\"takeaway\">Takeaway:<\/b> To define your work priorities, write down your top 25 career goals, and choose the five that are most important to you. Look at the 20 goals you didn't pick. As Warren Buffet suggests, you should avoid these at all costs.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong class=\"readingtime\">Estimated Reading Time:<\/strong> 1 minutes, 35s.<\/span>[\/box]\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-9999\" src=\"https:\/\/chrisbailey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/notepad-1192373-1279x1680-305x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"305\" height=\"400\" \/>\r\n\r\nOne of my favorite nuggets of wisdom from the book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1501111108\/?tag=aloproductivity-20\"><em>Grit<\/em><\/a>, by Angela Duckworth, has to do with defining our priorities at work. Most of us have a number of priorities that compete for our limited time, attention, and energy. In <em>Grit<\/em>, Angela proposes a simple technique originally suggested by Warren Buffett as a way to sort your priorities:\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">\"First, you write down a list of twenty-five career goals.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">Second, you do some soul-searching and circle the five highest-priority goals. Just five.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">Third, you take a good hard look at the twenty goals you didn't circle. These you avoid at all costs. They're what distract you; they eat away time and energy, taking your eye from the goals that matter more.\"<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">Angela was skeptical when she first heard this technique. \u201cI thought, \u2018<em>Who could have as many as 25 different career goals? That\u2019s kind of ridiculous, isn\u2019t it?\u2019<\/em> Then I started writing down on a piece of lined paper all of the projects I\u2019m currently working on. When I got to line 32, I realized that I could benefit from this exercise.\u201d<\/p>\r\nYou might be surprised by what you find, too. Becoming more productive is just as much about what you <em>don't<\/em> work on as it is about what you do. The most productive people don't only manage their time, attention, and energy\u2014they're also ruthless in defending their time against less important commitments.\r\n\r\n[box type=\"tick\"]<span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>One quick suggestion<\/strong><strong> if you decide to do this exercise<\/strong>: after you capture your goals, be sure to reflect on how many of them are related and can be consolidated!<\/span>[\/box]","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A simple activity to define your work priorities - Chris Bailey<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It\u2019s both a to-do and to-don\u2019t list for your future.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chrisbailey.com\/a-simple-activity-to-define-your-work-priorities\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A simple activity to define your work priorities - 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