Big Tip for Successful Task Management: Deprioritize Aggressively

Every professional I know gets far more tasks handed to them each day than they can possibly act on. So, here’s a tip that will help you be successful with managing an overwhelming list of tasks.

You Must Deprioritize Aggressively

If your task list is too big and poorly prioritized—if tens or even hundreds of items are critical—you’ll abandon the list and go back to acting on low-priority emails and projects, just because they are in front of you. And then you’ll get even further behind.

But if you deprioritize consistently, and promote only key tasks, it keeps your list fresh, relevant, and well-focused.

So, as a professional, you should use every tool you have to deprioritize your lower-value tasks—and do that deprioritizing aggressively. That way, at any given time, you are only presented with your most important tasks, and you don’t spin your wheels on low-priority actions.

Tools In 1MTD and MYN for Deprioritizing

And the good news is, that’s exactly what the 1MTD and MYN task systems are designed to help you do.

Here are a few of the tools built into 1MTD and MYN that help you deprioritize low-value tasks—these are tools that help you focus on only those tasks that will pay off for you.

Urgency Zone Size Limits (1MTD and MYN)

First, the three main Urgency Zones have size limits—and you should enforce them.

–If your Critical Now zone (your must-do-today tasks) reaches more than 5 Items, you will move the lowest there down to the Opportunity Now zone (and review that list tomorrow).

–If Opportunity Now reaches more than 20 items, you move excess items down to Over-the-Horizon and review those only weekly—or even less often. See the urgency zone definitions in the image below.

By doing that deprioritizing daily, you keep your critical list fresh and reasonably sized. And notice, I am not asking you to delete all excess tasks—most of us hate to do that. Rather you are moving them into regularly reviewed lower-priority lists. So, you are acting responsibly.

Hiding Tasks Until Relevant (MYN Only)

MYN goes beyond 1MTD in this way: It gives you tools to schedule certain tasks to remain hidden until they are ready for action. That’s what the Defer-to-Do and Defer-Review processes in MYN provide for you. Defer-to-Do is for tasks you strongly intend to do on a given future day. And Defer-to-Review is for tasks you merely want to review or reconsider at some future date. All the MYN-eligible software products like Outlook, Todoist, Things, Toodledo, and more—they all have features that enable you to enable these processes. Study the linked video courses to see how.

More Prioritizing Tools

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. 1MTD and MYN have multiple other tools to keep your task list clean and fresh, so you focus only on high-value tasks. Re-commit today to putting these systems in place and re-energizing your task list.