Exercise: Role Priorities vs. Task Priorities
Are your task priorities in alignment with your role priorities? For this exercise, you may want to use Post-it Notes.
- What are your role priorities? List up to ten job responsibilities as if you’re writing a “help wanted” ad, each one on a separate note.
- What are your task priorities? Again, use a separate note for each task. Create as many as you need.
- Lay out the role priorities horizontally on your desk or a whiteboard, from the most important on the left to the less important on the right.
- Arrange the task priorities vertically underneath the role priority to which it pertains, with the most important at the top.
See if a pattern emerges. Do most of your tasks line up under your most important role priorities? Or are they clustered at the right end? If it’s the latter, you may be very busy, but you may not be accomplishing the things that matter most. Consider whether these low-priority tasks can be handed off to someone else, automated, or eliminated entirely.
