As you develop your leadership skills, you’ll inevitably take on more responsibilities in your professional life. This is a great sign of growth, but can also be overwhelming. You might struggle to parse through priorities and determine which is the most important and which can wait until another day.

Part of being a successful leader is knowing how to manage competing priorities. You need to know how to evaluate tasks and projects so you can keep your focus on what needs to be done now and not worry about things that can wait. In this blog, we’ll discuss four ways you can support your productivity by prioritizing tasks and managing your time. 

Assess Your Working Style

The key to tackling a long priority list is to understand how you work best. If you’re constantly fighting your most productive processes, you’ll never get things done. 

First, you need to determine when your most productive hours are. When do you have the most energy during the day? When do you feel the most focused? These should be your “power hours” when you focus on completing the top priorities of the day. 

Next, consider your work environment. Some people do their best work when they’re alone in a quiet space, others source energy from busy settings with background noise. Figure out what setting helps you stay focused and try to recreate that in your workspace. Maybe you need to close the door to your office when you’re working on projects or take your computer to a coffee shop if you’re working remotely.

The closer you can stick to your natural working style, the easier it will be to accomplish urgent tasks and small tasks alike. However, keep in mind that you’ll never have a perfect environment. A good leader can make the best of any situation, so you need to be able to balance your working style with the reality of your workspace and schedule.

Choose Your Big 3

Prioritizing tasks when some are time-sensitive and others aren’t is easy. But managing conflicting priorities that all have similar deadlines can feel nearly impossible. Remember that even though they’re all important, not every task needs to be finished today.

Instead of looking at your list of initiatives as a whole, break it up into smaller chunks. Many productivity experts suggest finding your “Big 3.” These are the three most important priorities that must be completed today. It helps you narrow down a long list of tasks and set your sights on a manageable amount of work.

How you determine your Big 3 is up to you, but we suggest approaching it in one of these ways:

• Company goals. Think about your company’s vision and goals. Which tasks will help your organization move toward these goals? Which tasks support other teams directly working toward these goals? 

• Personal productivity. Instead of feeling stressed about your amount of work, adopt an attitude of helping yourself. Which tasks will make the rest of your day easier if you get them done first? If you fast forward to tomorrow, which tasks will you most regret not completing?

Focus your energy and attention on these three tasks and block out any other distractions fighting for your attention. If you finish these items with time to spare, then you can pick a new three and move on to those. The goal is to choose tasks that move either you or your organization forward–which is always the top priority.

Block Your Time

Sometimes the hardest part of managing competing priorities isn’t the tasks themselves but all the little distractions in between. Work meetings, team members who need your input and even coffee breaks all take away from the things you need to accomplish. 

This is why time management is critical for managing priorities when you have a lot on your plate. You need to focus on managing your time both on your calendar and your task list.

Your Calendar

As a team leader, you’ll likely get pulled into meetings throughout the day. However, you can’t allow those meetings to overshadow the time you need to do your work. You have to schedule times for yourself to be productive.

One way to do this is to block off your calendar during your most productive hours so your team knows you aren’t available for meetings in those time slots. You can even block off time to get all your meetings done at once, either at the beginning or end of the day, so you have uninterrupted time to work.

To get the most out of this tactic, try to schedule your blocks based on your work style. If possible, put meetings in times when you’re typically less productive. This way you can save your best hours for completing projects and spend the rest of the day collaborating with others.

Your Task List

Staring at a full eight hours worth of work can be intimidating, but don’t let the time slip away because of anxiety. Instead, you need to organize your task list into manageable chunks of time that will keep you focused and on track.

First, determine how long it will take you to do each task. Next, choose a block of time that you feel comfortable spending on a single project. (Many business leaders will work in one-hour increments.) Plot out your day with the assigned amount of time to each task and stick to your timeline. 

This helps you stay on track throughout the day by providing deadlines for each item on your to-do list. It can also help boost your productivity as you grow accustomed to focusing on only the task at hand and ignoring distractions.

Delegate the Little Things

Finally, all leaders need to know how to delegate. There will be times when you simply have more on your docket than you can accomplish alone, and that’s when you have to be confident that your team can help you. 

If you have a handful of small tasks or housekeeping items competing with real priorities, find someone who can take those things on for you. This frees up your time and energy and gives a team member an opportunity to take on new responsibilities and develop their own skills. 

Some leaders struggle to delegate tasks because they feel they have to do everything on their own. However, if you have a trusting relationship with your team, then allowing them to help you shows you’re confident in their abilities and dedicated to helping them grow.

For more help with managing competing priorities, download our Focus Plan. It’s an easy-to-follow guide that will help you focus your efforts on what’s most important and establish your top career goals.