Prioritize – Eliminate, Delegate, Automate - so you can Concentrate

Podcast Series Episode

October 27, 2023
Transcript Below
06:38
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Podcast Transcript:

This episode is about learning to prioritize by the “Eliminate, Delegate, and Automate” method. This tool will help you concentrate as part of the mini-series full of tips to manage your time better to fulfill your life purpose and in the transcription of this podcast, you’ll see the link to my website where you can see more resources.

Prioritization; humorous anecdote

Jeremy lived on a beautiful tropical Island in the Caribbean.

He had won the biggest lottery jackpot ever and knew that the Almighty Creator had blessed him with a great life.

One day, out of nowhere, a hurricane swept towards his island and very quickly his home was submerged.

As he climbed to the top floor, a friendly couple in a rowboat came by and offered to take him to dry land but he said, “That’s okay, the Almighty will save me.”.

Then he climbed to the roof to escape the water, which had now covered his entire house. A yacht came by and threw him a life buoy and offered to pull him on board, but he thanked them saying, “The Almighty will save me”.

Finally, the water was up to his chest and a helicopter threw down a ladder and said, “Climb up and we’ll take you to safety. But he once again thanked them and reaffirmed his belief that he would be saved by the Almighty.

Finally, he drowned, and Jeremy went to Heaven where he had an audience with the Almighty Creator of the Universe!

Jeremy said, “Almighty, I believed in you completely and you let me drown!”

The Almighty responded, “I sent you a rowboat, a yacht, and a helicopter but you ignored me each time!”.

We are surrounded by amazing opportunities in life.

But if we don’t cut through the clutter ,so we can prioritize what we are meant to pursue, we will still be waiting for the right opportunity as they pass right by us!

Task prioritization – eliminate; delegate; automate

So how do we cut through the clutter?

In Tim Ferris’s “The 4 Hour Work Week” he teaches to:

Eliminate anything not urgent or important
Delegate anything you can’t eliminate
Automate anything you can’t delegate

From the list of activities, we made in modules four and five, here is a list of my recommendations.

Eliminate: I eliminate responding to emails that aren’t critical. In my experience, this is well over 90 percent. I also eliminate listening to voicemails. If someone calls me and leaves a voicemail, if I know them and they are not someone I avoid I just return the call. Most of the time, the information you learn by listening to the message needs to be repeated when you call back. If I don’t know them, or do and don’t want to talk with them for a valid reason, I don’t call back and eliminate the need to.

Delegate: I have several virtual assistants who specialize in different activities that need a discerning mind, but don’t need my personal attention. Things like posting on social media, researching and first contact with prospects, website SEO, publishing this podcast (every element except recording from an outline of my own ideas), and customer service.

Automate: When I find a task basically repeats itself in a variety of duplicatable forms, I automate things such as calendar scheduling, responding to emails and texts using keywords, moving information from forms into CRMs, email and texting programs.

Prioritization matrix

Now we can concentrate on prioritizing what’s left using the Four Quadrants tool from Stephen Covey.

Imagine a graph with four quarters or quadrants.

One side of the graph along the top is labeled Important.

The other side is labeled Urgent.

So, the top left Quadrant is Quadrant 1 and are items that are Important and Urgent, better known as Crisis.

The top right quadrant is quadrant 2 and are items that are important, but not urgent, known as “planning ahead”. The bottom left quadrant is quadrant 3 and are items that are not important but urgent, known as outside distractions.

The bottom right quadrant is quadrant 4, and are items that are not important and are not urgent and will waste your time if you let them.

They need to be eliminated and should have not made it this far.

An emergency or crisis is important and can’t be put off any longer, so when faced with quadrant 1 – Do it today or tomorrow before it explodes.

Most of your time should be spent in the fertile territory of quadrant 2.

Schedule these items, so they get top priority. These include items that if you do them now will have the biggest impact and enable you ever having to go into crisis or quadrant 1.

These include long-term projects, planning ahead, and studying in advance (“sharpening the saw”).

Non-important items in quadrant 3 can scream for your attention and take away all your valuable time.

So avoid interruptions, distractions and fun events that don’t build valuable business or personal relationships Including social invitations that won’t lead to a crisis if avoided.

Items in quadrant 4 need to be eliminated,as they are time wasters, busy work, procrastination activities (non-purposeful scrolling on social media).

Quadrant 1 – When you do most of your work here, you may often feel stressed or panicked, and are likely to experience burnout!

Quadrant 2 – Completing work here has the ability to make a positive difference in your life. By planning ahead, you will have more control, balance, and vision in your life.

Quadrant 3 – If you spend a lot of time here, you may be crossing items off your to-do list, but everything has a short-term focus. The work doesn’t connect to big picture goals.

Quadrant 4 – Spending time here results in a lack of responsibility for things that need to be completed. This makes academic success, personal wellness, and healthy relationships hard to achieve.

Ask yourself – How can I spend more time in quadrant 2?

In the next podcast, we will learn how to stay in quadrant 2 and turn our priorities into action.

For more guidance and tips on how to live your dream life, go to my website, https://therabbiwhogotrichonsunday.com to access content-rich articles and more.

You can also access a link to that web page through the show notes, if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast platforms.