Create a To-Do List
Start by making a note of all the things that you need to do every day. This helps to write all your tasks down to make sure you have things to prioritise.
Do this either at the end or start of every day and have everything written down in one place. Having your information in different places will lead to tasks being left off and feeling disorganised.
List Everything in Order of Importance
What needs to be done first? Does something have an earlier deadline or have you been putting something off for a while?
List all of your tasks in the order that are most important. This is the order that they need doing in. However, that doesn’t completely solve the issue.
Revisit Your List when New Tasks Come Up
There is always something new that you want or need to do. As this happens, you will need to revisit your list and add them in.
You’ll need to revisit the importance listing to make sure the new task is done on time.
Organise the Longer Deadline Tasks
Don’t leave the tasks with long deadlines to the last minute. Schedule regular days where you will work on them a little at a time.
You will not get a whole six month’s worth of work into two days without a lot of stress and aggravation, so don’t try it. These longer deadline tasks have to fit inside your other tasks and are just as important in many cases.
Work on One Task at a Time
Create your to-do list with the one-job-at-a-time rule in mind. You need to give each task your upmost attention so focus on one at a time.
If you need to wait for someone else to finish something on one task, move onto the next one.
Set Times to Check Your Inbox
Limit your distractions. Emails are one of the biggest. They don’t need instant replies so allow them to pile up for a set time to check them.
You will be able to get on with the other tasks at hand until that time and deal with a group of them at once. If you have alerts set up, turn them off to help avoid the temptation to check your emails.
Make Space for Others to Interrupt You
Your day won’t always go to plan. The best way to prioritise and stay on top of your workload is to allow for things to interrupt you.
You may have a business meeting at short notice or a phone call from a customer that you need to deal with. By allowing for this, you won’t rush the other tasks on your list.