Successful Mornings: Learning to Set Your Priorities

Do you set a daily priority list?  If you don’t set a priority list, do you feel like your day just gets away from you? The next step to learning how to have successful mornings is prioritizing your day.  The morning hours are great time to focus and spend time on completing your daily priorities.

This is day 3 of our discussion of Make Over Your Mornings by Crystal Paine.  Today’s topic is learning to set our daily priorities for a successful morning.  If you missed day 1 or day 2, you can start here:

Day 1 – Getting Started – Understanding Why

Day 2 – Preparing for Your Morning the Night Before

Big Rocks First – Set Your Priorities

In the workbook and in the video for today’s lesson, Crystal shares the story about the “big rocks”.  Have you heard this story?  You take an empty jar and fill it will medium sized rocks until you can add no more rocks.  At first, it seems like the jar is full.  Can you add any more?  Yes, you can fill with smaller rocks/gravel, then sand and even water.

So often we feel our lives are too busy and overwhelmed.  We just cannot add any more.  But have your put the big rocks in first?  Every day, do you know what are the most important (not necessarily urgent) things you must do today?

How to Determine Your Priorities

You may find your biggest challenge is determining your priorities.  Maybe everything feels important and must be done right now.

As Crystal points out in this lesson, to set your daily priorities, you need to know the difference between what is important and what is urgent.  The important things will be your daily priorities.

All day, you will have urgent things (your child will want your attention, you will need to prepare lunch or dinner). You will tend to the urgent matters, but your focus will stay on your priorities.  If we go back to the jar example, fill your day with the rocks (priorities first), not the gravel, sand and water – less important or urgent tasks.

Today’s Challenge

Determine your big rocks/priorities for every day.  Focus on completing those important tasks in the morning, then you can add in the other tasks.

Write down your priorities every day.  This year, I have decided to write my priorities on my planner every day so I know what I have to complete first.  I do suggest a written planner to help you see your priorities for the day, the week and the month.

Get an accountability partner.  Tell someone else your priorities and ask them to help you stay focused.  Your accountability partner could be your spouse or a brother or sister or good friend.

Your Turn…

Are you setting your priorities every day so you can start tackling those tasks first thing in the morning?

Special reminder

If you are still considering purchasing your own copy of Make Over Your Mornings, it’s on sale for just $9, but only till Friday, January 8th.

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