During the holiday season, keeping priorities is important to your success and health. The most important things that need to be done should be first on our list of things to do. Prioritization allows you to give your attention to tasks that are the most important and urgent so that you can later focus on lower priority tasks.
When you only have a few days to get everything done and your workload is already high, you end up being stressed. You are anxious, you can not concentrate, and everything seems to distract you. These stressors are some of the most pervasive sources of pressure at home and in the workplace, and they happen as a result of having too much to do, in too short of time.
So how can you avoid being stressed and accomplish the things that are essential over the next couple of weeks? Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower valued time management and recognized that it involved being effective as well as efficient. In other words, we must spend our time on things that are important and not just the ones that are urgent.
Eisenhower’s Urgent/Important Principle helps you think about your priorities to determine which are important to achieving a goal and those that are urgent but not important to your success. To minimize the stress of having too many tight deadlines, you need to understand this distinction.
However, your highest priority should always be your relationship with God and fulfilling his will for your life. Do not let this slip away. As we approach Christmas, purchasing gifts should not be your top priority but rather remembering those who will be without the necessities to sustain themselves.
Here are a few suggestions to help you prioritize and separate what is important from what is urgent:
- Have one list that contains all tasks.
- Identify what is important to your true goals.
- Highlight what’s urgent.
- Prioritize based on importance and urgency.
- Consider how much effort will be required.
- Review constantly and be ready to reprioritize.
Remember to keep your priorities straight and Never Give Up! Never Give Up! Never Give Up!
By Chaplain Ghosten
chaplain@lhp.net
