Focus on the Most Valuable Work with Intentional Prioritization
Any leader will tell you that time is a valuable resource. Time is not as important as focus. A leader can make a bigger impact with an hour focused on the most important work than one work day of unfocused time.
Your time and priorities should be focused in your most valuable and important work. This is work that will move the needle on your personal, team, and company goals. This could be focusing on your personal tasks or empowering your team members to focus on theirs.
To do this you need to strategically think in advance about your most important and valuable work. This is challenging for leaders because your work impacts yourself, your direct reports, and their teams. Your work also likely has cross-functional and upward impact on the organization and may have client, customer, or vendor dependencies. When you manage a large team with a large or challenging scope there is rarely a clear answer to defining your most important or valuable work.
Ground yourself in:
The vision, mission and goals of your company
The purpose and role of your team
Your team objectives and goals
Your personal goals and values
From there be honest with yourself around what you can and should be able to accomplish in a given week or set amount of time. You likely will only have 1-3 important focuses in a week and may not take specific action on those each day. There may be days dedicated to less strategic meetings, communications, or other interactions and responsibilities.
Remember one hour of focused time can be valuable. The key is to know your intentional and strategic priorities and to dedicate time for them amongst your other competing priorities.
If you are intentionally prioritizing well at any time you will have a quick list of your most important priorities. You will also know yourself and your personal work style. You will understand when you have your best moments of flow and how to prioritize your most important work. Prioritizing successfully is not about having the highest motivation but knowing how to get focused when you are unmotivated or distracted.
You can read more about prioritization in our resource.
Techniques to Intentionally Prioritize
Eisenhower Framework
Use the Eisenhower Framework as a basis to determine your most valuable work.
Fill your week with your big rocks first.
Part of leading strategically is intentionally filling your day and time with your high-priority and high-impact work. Consider the metaphor Big Rocks, Little Rocks.
Deep Flow
What does a moment of flow look like in your work? When are you in deep focus and concentration?
Consider your patterns for Flow.
Variables in Procrastination
Manage your procrastination with the procrastination equation.
Intrinsic Motivators
Staying dedicated to your leadership strategy relies on motivation. What are your intrinsic motivators and drivers?
About Talent Praxis
Praxis is bridging the gap between theory and action.
We help companies and leaders practice proven academic management theories in the workplace to build results-driven teams.
Management and leadership are not skills you learn once but rather ongoing practices to achieve results.
Talent Praxis offers one-on-one leadership coaching, training in people management, and consulting in performance management to help leaders and companies develop their own strategic praxis.
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