I often hear people say (and say myself) the phrase “I’m so busy”.  I was sitting in my office the other day with a notepad filled with pages of ‘to do’s’ scribbled in orange sharpie when it hit me – I was busy being busy.  Its common for people to take on more than they can handle at any given time.  Typically in that situation you would then prioritize the list and work your way down.  I decided this time that I was going to take a different approach.  Before I get into this post in more detail, let me say that I read about this exercise in a book (I can’t remember which) roughly six months ago.

I decided to make use of my freshly painted whiteboard walls, and proceeded to list all of my to do’s into three categories: to do, fix, grow.  I realized that a bulk of my ‘to do’ items were in the grow category, whereas grow meant growth opportunities.  I looked in front of me and counted 15 opportunities, comprised of different market segments and geographic regions.  I thought to myself, where do I start? They are all important!  Sure, some are more important than others, but there weren’t any that jumped out at me where I said ‘I can move that to the backburner’.

With my opportunities I then added three columns next to each: Revenue, Strategy, Time.  I created a value from 1-10 for each.  Revenue opportunity Low-High, 1-10, Strategy Less Important to Very Important, 1-10, Time involved in bringing to fruition, a great deal of time to no time at all, 1-10.

So, I then went down each opportunity and attached a value based on the above.  For example, to grow distribution into Europe could have a high revenue possibility, so I gave it a 7.  In terms of strategy, since its not our primary market, I gave it a 5.  Since its a completely new market, I know its going to take a lot of time to do, so I gave it a 2.  I’ve attached an example below with arbitrary data.

In performing this exercise it will help to give you a clear direction on where you should be focusing your energy.  Your most valuable asset is your time.

For fun, I performed this same exercise but applied it to a non-business situation.    Lets say you are thinking about taking a vacation.  You have a reasonable budget of $1,500 for a 5 day trip.  My evaluating attributes are: Cost, Feasibility and Desire.  Can I afford it, is it something feasible to do, do I really want to do it?  Take a look at what I came up with.

Clearly I have no interest in watching the grass grow, and, although I would love to go to the moon, its not feasible and I cannot afford it.  A European getaway may be pushing it, but its still an option.  Cancun is more feasible.  It looks like a weekend trip to the beach or a wine tasting getaway may be best.  While this exercise had some examples that were clearly to prove a point, and there were a limited number of options, this model can be used when you are trying to prioritize or evaluate your best options when you have a number of tasks to do or options to choose from.

You may not realize it, but when you have a list of things you are trying to prioritize in front of you, your brain is actually going through this exercise.  Think about when you are trying to prioritize a group of items – you are thinking of certain values that each has and trying to compare them to eachother.  By performing the above exercise you are creating a level playing field for each option and letting the math tell you which is the best route to take.

Don’t get caught in the endless cycle of being busy because you are busy.

-Mike