How to Make The Most of Your Priorities

FRIDAY Book Study: we will study this one power packed book throughout the year, each week diving into business, mindset, and personal development principles. Og Mandino’s University of Success: The Greatest Self-Help Author in the World Presents the Ultimate Success Book.

Please make sure you read and study this chapter, there are soooo many nuggets in this lesson. CLICK HERE for the book in pdf format.

LESSON 23 (SEMESTER FIVE) TAKEAWAYS

• Advice that earned a check for twenty-five thousand dollars
• Take a pad of paper, in the evening, and list the most urgent projects which confront you.
• Study the list and number them, assigning number one to the most important job, number two to the next most vital, and so on down the’ list.
• Beginning tomorrow, tackle number one and stay on it until it is finished before you move on to number two.
• Work on down the list.
• When the day is through, prepare a new list, again assigning top priority to the most important task still undone and so on down the list
• Do this every day
• Again and again when I talked to successful businessmen the To Do List came up
• People at the top and people at the bottom both know about To Do Lists.
• Difference between them is that the people at the top use a To Do List every single day to make better use of their time; people at the bottom know about this tool but don’t use it effectively.
• One of· the real secrets of getting. more done is to make a To Do List every day, keep it visible, and use it as a guide to action as you go through the day.
• The basics of the list itself are simple:
  • head a piece of paper “To Do”
  • list those items on which you want to work
  • cross off items as they are completed
  • add others as they occur to you
  • rewrite the list at the end of the day
• List everything that has high priority today and might not get done without special attention.
• You must set priorities.
• Some people do as many items as possible on their lists. They get a very high percentage of tasks done, but their effectiveness is low because the tasks they’ve done are mostly of C-priority.
• The best way is to take your list and label each item according to ABC priority, delegate as much as you can, and then polish off the list accordingly.
• Don’t worry about completing your list
• Do all the A’s before the B’s and the B’s before the C’s.
• Some days you may get all the items on your list done, but more likely there will not be time to do them all.
• If you are doing them in ABC order you may not even finish all the A’s.
• One rarely reaches the bottom of a To Do List.
• It’s not completing the list that counts but making the best use of your time.
• By doing more A’s and fewer C’s, the hierarchy of your accomplishments will change.
• You can break up your old A’s into new A’s and B’s, downgrading your old B’s to C’s and dropping most of the old C’s off your list entirely.
• The good time user has a constant stream of A’s going through the pipeline and is not hung up on which A to do or how to do it or trying to be a perfectionist about a particular A.
• Rather, he does a number of A-tasks daily and remembers that as soon as he has identified the best use of his time, the time to do it is now.

TODAY’S THOUGHT

CAN THERE POSSIBLY BE A SYSTEM FOR
HANDLING YOUR JOB IN SUCH A MANNER THAT
YOU WOULD NEVER HAVE TO SUFFER THE
ORDEAL OF SEEING WORK PILE UP ON YOU?

TODAY’S INSTRUCTOR:
Arnold Bennett & Arthur Brisbane

Alan Lakein born in 1938. He is a well-known author on personal time management, including How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life which has sold over 3 million copies.

Lakein is credited for several quotes, including “Time = Life, Therefore, waste your time and waste your life, or master your time and master your life.” He is credited as the creator of Lakein’s question: “What is the best use of my time right now?”. He has also made management films and training films. Lakein currently resides in Santa Cruz, California. Lakein graduated from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School.

TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS BOOK STUDY

• I may read and record a portion of the chapter or just pick out a few nuggets each week. So, to really obtain the full benefit and get the most out of this book you may want to purchase your own copy, here is the link to Amazon
• Highlight, underline, star, mark up this book however you want with things that resonate with you.
• Take this study slowly and with intention, that’s why we are doing only ONE chapter each week, so we can ponder, think and study on this content until the next chapter.
• Do the chapters in order (all of these suggestions are from the author)