Task Prioritization and Time Management – John Maxwell Style

How to Manage Your Time

We all wish we had more time in the day. However, the reality is we must all complete everything in the same 24 hour period as our friends, family, colleagues and competitors.

In a recent post on his leadership blog, John Maxwell wrote about this shared limitation of available time. What distinguishes the most successful people, he suggests, is how they prioritize their tasks to make the best use of their time.  In fact, Maxwell provided a simple but effective formula for prioritizing tasks to make the best use of  time. This approach is similar to formulas I’ve used to prioritize business requirements on projects. Therefore, I created a spreadsheet to leverage John’s formula and provide a tool for prioritizing tasks. You can download a copy of the spreadsheet here by simply clicking on the appropriate version below:

Prioritization Tool

• Excel 1997 to 2003
• Excel 2007+
• Not Sure? Use the 97/03 Version

I encourage you to read John’s “Don’t Manage Your Time, Manage Your Life!” post yourself. Then, you can either use this spreadsheet or find your own solution for prioritizing tasks.

Question: Did you try this spreadsheet or another formula or tool to prioritize your tasks? What works for you?