How to Prioritize after a Concussion
Next up in our organization series is prioritizing.
If you’ve been following this series, you now have a brain dump organized into a neat list of all of your hopes, dreams, and to-dos. That’s overwhelming for the healthiest brain!
Instead of hiding this overwhelming list, prioritize. Prioritizing helps you choose your next step with purpose.
Previous posts:
How to Prioritize
Gather your supplies:
Brain dump
Planner or calendar
Pen or pencil
Colored pens/highlighters (optional)
Keep your to-dos in one place
If you haven’t made a brain dump yet, start with a brain dump. A brain dump gathers all of your ideas onto one big list.
You will have more energy to think because you aren’t trying to mentally hold all of your ideas. You also have increased confidence. Your can look at your list and know that all of your ideas and to-dos are written down.
Look for deadlines
Scan your brain dump for upcoming due dates.
Put these on the calendar. Then cross them off your brain dump.
Analyze the remaining tasks based on importance
Next assess how important the other tasks are. Some questions you can ask yourself are:
What are the benefits of doing the task? What are the consequences of not doing it?
Are you the only person who can do it?
Does it have to be done now?
Will it keep you from doing something else more important?
Notice which tasks stand out as the most important. These are tasks that have significant benefits for doing them or consequences for not doing them. Usually, only you can do them and they have to be done soon.
Make notes
Make notes on your brain dump so you remember which tasks are important. You can choose to:
Star or highlight tasks that are important to do in the coming week.
Color code the tasks based on importance. Use different colors for high importance, medium importance, and low importance.
Number the tasks based on order of importance.
Write Down your priorities
Commit to 1-2 priorities per day.
Record them in your planner.
You can write down priorities for a few days at a time. But, it’s important to stay flexible. Your priorities may shift so “pencil them in” if you’re planning ahead.
Keep it up
Schedule a time each day to look at your planner/calendar and brain dump.
Reassess your priorities each day.
Choose 1-2 things to focus on. Write them down.
Finally, remember that it’s a marathon and not a sprint! If you feel like you are making slow progress, focus on what you have done instead of what you need to do. You will chip away at your list a little each day.
The next post in this organization series will focus on one of the best strategies for decreasing to-do list stress: Delete, Delegate, Defer, and Decrease. Stay tuned next Wednesday!