Day 22: You Can't Do Everything

There is no question; the workload for almost of us is huge. We are the “working class”. And it seems like whether or not you are completely organized with your action items, or if you are half-hazardly attacking your ‘to do’ list in an ad hoc manner, we all have more to do than can possibly get done by one person. Said differently, you can’t do everything.

From my perspective, the solution falls into two categories – delegating and prioritizing. Effective delegating is a must and definitely calls for a talented team and an effective manager / leader. One of the best concise description of effective delegating is offered by Dr. Carter McNamara on MangagementHelp.org. If there is any question in your mind about delegating, check this out:

http://managementhelp.org/guiding/delegate/delegate.htm

And the second, equally important method of addressing the fact that ‘you can’t do everything’, is to make certain you’re doing the right thing – in other words prioritizing. There are two famous methods designed to help prioritize. One includes categorizing your ‘to do list’ in to A items, B items and C items. And then make sure you’re not ignoring A items to get C and B items done. And then there is the 80 / 20 rule, which essentially points out that generally speaking 80% of your opportunity involves 20% of your customers. Thus, it only makes sense to strongly focus on the 20%.

Both of these prioritization methods are effectively explained in detailed in an interview that Erica Douglas conducted back in 2007 when she interviewed Timothy Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week. Check out this interesting discussion here:

http://www.thebusinessmakers.com/episodes/shows/2007/june/episode-107/timothy-ferriss-4-hour-work-week.html

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