Beth Pratt

The summer months are perfect for taking work a bit easier than usually, and “taking the time” to regroup and plan. For any small business owners that have multiple roles and responsibilities, this is the best time to get into a habit of prioritizing. Adopting good prioritizing habits now will help you when your work gets overwhelming.

How often do you think: I’ve got way too many decisions to make and too many tasks to accomplish and too little time?

According to professional organizer and business advisor, Sandy Stelter failure to prioritize your workload is a No. 1 stressor of business owners.

“While learning how to prioritize isn’t an exact science, it is a tool to allow you as a business owner to be more productive and less strained.”

Maybe you need to change your prioritizing methods. Here’s a way to start. Step One: Review your current habits and avoid becoming an “urgent slave.”

We are constantly jumping from one urgency to the next and never get to the real issues. The greatest danger is letting the urgent things crowd out the important things. You have become a “slave to the urgent” when you allow tasks that seemingly call for instant action and endless demand. The way to turn this habit around is train yourself to plan ahead and make sure you focus on the real important issues for long term impact.

Step Two: Prioritize your tasks.

When you prioritize remember to rank in terms of real importance. I like to label things as: must do, should do and nice to do. This is an area that many of us slip up on.

When I had a home-based business, I would confuse the nice to do (like doing three loads of laundry) with the should do’s (like completing the contract that is due). When your priorities are skewed it becomes a source of stress, and stress has its own way of gobbling up your productivity.

Step Three: It takes time to manage your time.

Studies have indicated that those business owners who take the time to prioritize their tasks daily or even weekly are much more productive.

List-making not only helps managers prioritize it is also a handy tool for delegating duties. When a task is written down with a person’s name responsible for completion, the task is four times more likely to get completed.

Step Four: Stay on course.

Practice your new “prioritizing habits.” Beware of time-wasters and have a strategy to deal with them.

Step Five: Join us at the Napa Valley College’s Customer Service Academy and Napa Chamber of Commerce Business Builder’s Breakfast: Time and Organizational Management at the Napa Chamber of Commerce on July 18, 7:30 a.m.

This presentation features Stelter. The cost is $10.

Info, 253-3210.