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I wanted to share something I’ve been grappling with in my own life as a first-time mom… and that is, priorities. It's an interesting feeling when something you once thought was so important is now seemingly insignificant.
Simply put, giving “100%” to everything and aiming to be equally balanced across all important areas of your life isn’t always the most realistic expectation.
Prioritizing something new can be uncomfortable, especially if it means DE-prioritizing something else (at least temporarily)—which can be rather difficult when nearly everything feels urgent and important in our busy lives.
If you're anything like me, you may be prone to procrastinating the urgent or hard things and tend to prioritize the “easier” tasks first even though they may be less urgent.
Recently, I learned some super simple and effective systems of prioritization from our friend Karin Nordin at Body Brain Alliance and want to share it with you in the hopes you'll find it as helpful as I did.
The Prioritization Process
Start by writing down ALL the things you need to do (include everything, from laundry to responding to work emails).
Then, choose one of the methods below—or feel free to stack them. This allows you to be flexible with what tasks you’re going to do first.
Method 1: Deadlines
Categorize the things you need to do by deadlines, making the deadline the latest you can do it.
From there, you could do things in order of when they’re due & “race the date.”
Method 2: Emotion-Based
Choose 3 different colors (if on paper) or 3 emojis (if on your phone) and label high, medium, or low stress for each task.
From there, you could do things in order of the stress the task brings.
Method 3: Ripple
This method is more applicable for tasks that include or affect others—mark these with an asterisk.
From there, you could do things in order of which tasks will have an impact on others.
Depending on your preference, you may decide to start with a high-stress task even though it’s not due for a couple more days. Or, maybe you start with the tasks that have the biggest ripple effect and are due the soonest.
So the laundry (low on deadline but perhaps high stress) may have to wait in order to get your meal prep done (more urgent & impacts the family but low stress).
Notice and acknowledge the discomfort, try to make it fun, and see how your week changes by incorporating these prioritization methods.
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