Deep dive: Prioritization & Delegation Tools

Save yourself time and empower others.

Are you sometimes stressed?

(Is it because you did not plan well?)

I don’t know many people who plan well. But those who are, smile more because they complain less. People are not used to prioritizing. They deal with everyday challenges as they come. But you risk that they pile up.

Too much work? Your stress level and annoyance will skyrocket.

Check these tools and frameworks and prioritize. You’ll learn about time management, delegation, prioritization, and planning.

Your mental health will thank you later.

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Contents:

Prioritization & Time management

• The Eisenhower Matrix

• Time-Value Prioritization funnel (TVP)

• The Action Priority Matrix

• Decision trees

Delegation

• The Learning Zone Model

• The Delegation Funnel

• The Skill Will Matrix

Wrap up

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Prioritization & Time management

You can't manage time. Yet, you can slow it down, focus on it, and make it productive. People waste time on distractions and drown in their to-do lists.

They have one disadvantage - to-do lists do not tell you where to start. It’s just a pile. It is up to you to make sense of your time.

The Eisenhower Matrix

This matrix is one of the most well-known. Stephan Covey popularized it in his evergreen book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It is a simple 4-quadrant matrix to help you manage tasks and time. Two axes:

• Urgent: Tasks and duties requiring immediate action or attention.

• Important: Tasks and duties with high value and importance.

Image Source: facilethings.com

Leaders often focus on quadrant I as many things are pressing and urgent. There are so many crises to solve! Yet, it is a trap. It makes you focus on only what is ‘now’ and neglect long-term goals.

“Quadrants III and IV include things that, urgent or not, do not matter. Effective people spend more time in Quadrant II, minimize the time spent in Quadrant I, and do not worry too much about Quadrants III and IV.” - Francisco Sáez

Quadrant II is not to be ignored. These are critical things that can backfire if left unattended. They help you find purpose and plans that prevent crises and problems.

Example: You hire a new person but have no training program.

It’s important and urgent to pay attention. Yet, you will jump between his questions and your agenda. You ask people around to train him on something. So he does not just sit around. Onboarding is chaos. He will learn something, but not everything and his development will be slow and not productive.

You realize next time, it would be helpful to have a training plan (not urgent but important). Now make time to build it up.

Time-Value Prioritization funnel (TVP)