Tag Archives: Priority

5 Reasons to Prioritise Your 12 Week Review

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Image Credit: Madhuri Gupta

When you start doing quarterly reviews you start to realise just how fast 3 months go by.

The end of each quarter is a super time to look back and reflect on how things went in the past quarter and plan for the quarter ahead.

Having a personal strategy is all about creating an amazing, fulfilled, purposeful and meaningful life. Your personal strategy is only as good as the reviews you do and the changes you make as a result of these reviews.

When personal strategy and the goals you have set, the quarterly review can be the most important. It certainly is my favourite review because it’s a deep dive into progress of goals and there is way more progress quarterly than can be seen daily, weekly and monthly which is always motivating.

As humans we are wired to perform better when we are making progress which is why reflection & reviews are so important. You may not think you are making progress in your life & work but you are probably making way more progress than you think! 

On reflection, this will become very clear!

BUT FIRST – WHY! 

WHY should you carry out a 12 Week Review?

Simon Sinek is famous for his brilliant TED Talk ‘How great leaders inspire action’ with over 13 million views on YouTube. In this video, Simon talks about the importance of knowing your ‘WHY’ in terms of everything you do.

When it comes to everything in your life, your WHY is the first step to success! 

Here are 5 reasons WHY I think your 12 Week Review deserves to be your priority, 

1. It slows you down and gives you time & space to think

We live in an extremely fast paced world and we seem to be so busy all the time. 

Reflection of any kind allows us to stop moving forward, to be still in the present moment and to give the necessary time and space required to learn from the past. 

Not to dwell on or judge the past, but to take the learnings from it to move forward with more knowledge, focus, intention, purpose, motivation & understanding of what our priorities are.

When was the last time you took a few hours to look back and reflect on your life & work?

Do you give yourself the gift of sufficient time & space to reflect regularly and learn from reflection?

 

2. It allows you to acknowledge, appreciate and celebrate your successes

Do you celebrate all your wins & successes or do you move through life at the speed of light, not acknowledging, appreciating and celebrating your success?

 We make progress in our lives & work all day EVERY SINGLE DAY yet we are sometimes so busy & focused on getting things done that we don’t see all of these wins and successes.

 Carrying out your 12 Week Review gives you the time and space to acknowledge, appreciate and celebrate the progress you have made in the past 12 weeks. 

This in turn will get you thinking about all of the amazing wins and successes you have EVERY SINGLE DAY of which we all have so many.

 

3. It allows you to understand what contributes to your success and take action to create more

There are many reasons why we are successful at some things and not so successful at others. 

Have you ever sat down and reflected on your successes and really thought about how they happened. 

  • Was it something you did? 
  • Was it something you got support with?  
  • Was it something that happened quickly or something that took a long time? 
  • Was it a bit of pot luck or did you plan meticulously for it?  

When we understand what contributes to our success, we can replicate & build on this to bring us more success. 

Success has a different meaning for everyone as we all live different lives, are at different stages and have different priorities. 

Reflecting on success supports you to learn more about exactly what success means to you so you can create an action plan that will build on the success you already enjoy! 

 

4. It allows you to acknowledge challenges that got in the way of your success

Things don’t always work out how we plan or how we want them to. 

Even the best plans don’t work out, this is a normal part of life and work. 

Acknowledging your challenges/obstacles is the first step to learning about them and overcoming them. 

This in turn ensures you don’t come up against them again and if you do, you are better prepared. 

Sometimes we don’t want to face our challenges/obstacles let alone reflect on and review them, however it is from our challenges/obstacles that we can learn so much and grow and evolve as human beings!

 

5. It allows you to understand what contributed to these challenges and turn these into successes

Challenges and obstacles are a normal part of life and work, it is how we deal with them that determines our ability to overcome them. 

Understanding what caused the challenges and obstacles goes a long way to dealing with and overcoming them in a healthy way.

Challenges/obstacles are a constant companion on the road to your goals and are your stepping stones to success. Llearning from them makes stepping over those stones that bit easier! 

Taking action from what you learn will turn challenges/obstacles into opportunities!

What can you learn from the challenges you experienced over the past 12 weeks? 

What action can you take to turn your challenges into successes? 

That’s it, the 5 Reasons to Prioritise Your 12 Week Review. 

I wish you success, health and happiness as you look back at the past 12 weeks and even more success, health and happiness as you look forward to the next 12 weeks.

Want to join my weekly newsletter?

If so download my free ebook ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below and you are all signed up! 

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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The Priority Matrix

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Image Credit: Madhuri Gupta

Eisenhower’s Priority Matrix is named after it’s founder Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. Before becoming President, Eisenhower served as a general in the United States Army and as the Allied Forces Supreme Commander during World War II.

During this time Eisenhower had to make tough decisions about what tasks he should focus on each day. This led him to invent the world-famous Eisenhower Matrix, which today helps us prioritise by urgency and importance.

More recently this matrix has become popularly known as ‘Covey’s Time Management Matrix’, named after Steven Covey who introduced us to the matrix in his wildly successful bestselling book ‘The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People’ which was first published in 1989.

Whether you call it ‘Eisenhower’s Matrix’ or ‘Covey’s Time Management Matrix’ – the ‘Priority Matrix’ is a highly effective and powerful tool for utilising your time wisely and focusing on what really matters in business & life.

It is widely known that focusing on our priorities can help us reach our goals while also ensuring we don’t become overwhelmed, stressed & burned out along the way.

Many studies have been carried out on the detrimental effects of stress & burnout on the human body and going by these studies stress should be avoided at all costs.

If we add all of our tasks into the Priority Matrix, it looks something like the below which is cluttered and can be overwhelming. Knowing where to focus our energy and time will help us declutter our tasks, feel less overwhelmed and focus on our top priorities.

Here is how the ‘Priority Matrix’ works.

The matrix is divided into 4 quadrants determined by varying degrees of urgency and importance.

Only one of these quadrants will move us closer to our goals.

Only one quadrant will PRIORITISE OUR PROGRESS. 

1. Important and Urgent 

These are tasks that require immediate attention, they must be done asap. 

These can be deadlines, crises, problems that need immediate solutions, emergencies, last minute tasks.

Only tasks that require your immediate attention should go into this quadrant.

Care is required to ensure you do not spend all of time in this quadrant as this quadrant is basically FIRE FIGHTING. 

You will be VERY BUSY in this quadrant but you will be making LITTLE TO NO PROGRESS towards your goals!

This quadrant does not prioritise YOUR progress towards YOUR goals. 

2. Important and Not Urgent 

These are long term tasks that contribute to your business & personal strategy.

These tasks move you closer to YOUR GOALS.  

They are not urgent tasks but must be planned and scheduled to run the business or live the life you want for yourself. 

These are strategy planning, strategy review, goal setting, continuous Improvement, problem solving, learning and personal development.

This is the most important quadrant and you should be spending AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE here.

THE MORE TIME YOU SPEND HERE, the more PRODUCTIVE, SUCCESSFUL & HAPPY you will be.

This quadrant prioritises YOUR progress towards YOUR goals. 

3. Not Important and Urgent

These are tasks that deliver VERY LITTLE VALUE in terms of your goals. 

These are interruptions, problems that do not belong to you, non-relevant phone calls/meetings/e-mails.

The best thing to do with these tasks is to either delegate or decline them. 

They may need to get done, but don’t necessarily need to get done by you. 

In this case delegate asap.

If you can’t delegate, it’s also ok to decline and say no to these time wasting activities.

It’s best to spend as LITTLE TIME AS POSSIBLE here.

This quadrant does not prioritise YOUR progress towards YOUR goals. 

4. Not Important and Not Urgent

These are tasks that deliver NO VALUE AT ALL in terms of your goals but can be enjoyable and used for entertainment and relaxation purposes.

These are watching tv, scrolling social media, video games, surfing the net, needless phone calls/meetings/e-mails.

Watching tv, scrolling social media, video games and surfing the net can be very enjoyable and they are wonderful ways to relax but they are entertainment – unless you work for Netflix etc!  

It’s a matter of balancing these enjoyable, entertaining activities with time spent in quadrant 2!

This quadrant does not prioritise YOUR progress towards YOUR goals. 

That’s it, the Priority Matrix is a pretty simple tool yet incredibly effective and powerful.

  • What quadrant do you spend most of your time in?
  • Where would you like to spend more time?
  • Where would you like to spend less time?

Do you want to join my weekly newsletter?

If so download my free ebook  ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below and you are all signed up! 

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

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