« Water It Down | Main | Props for Productivity »

May19
Prioritizing by Comparison

In my strolls around the web looking for more information about prioritizing with rocks and quadrants, I came upon this website devoted to managing time with your PDA.  In just a handful of pages, Bruce Keener covers a lot of ground very effectively. 

On his Prioritizing Tasks page he describes the paired comparison method, a technique I vaguely remember learning in school that could come in handy when you’re faced with a short list, a time budget and a case of indecision. 

In this method, you rank everything on your list against every other thing (that’s why it’s good for short lists).  So, you go down the list ranking the first item against every other one.  Each “winner” gets a hash mark.  When you’re done, you can quickly see which task got the highest ranking. 

I wouldn’t use it as a major component of my system, but it can help circumvent overwhelm by forcing you to look at only two things at a time, instead of your whole list.  And it can help you be more objective about those tasks, especially if the top rated one is a surprise to you. 


2 Comments/Trackbacks




This reminds me of an argument I had with our vp sales. He was trying to show me that everything on his agenda is the "top priority" while I was trying to logically convince him that if one item gets to be the most important then another one obviously has to step down from the top priority. After arguing for more then an hour, we broke it off, never having convinced each other.

Ohad,
Your VP may indeed have a list of all #1 priorities, but when it comes to getting the work done, you just have to choose. As they say, "Time is nature's way to keep everything from happening at once."

submit a trackback

TrackBack URL for this entry:

post a comment

Name, Email Address, and URL are not required fields.





Comment Preview

« Water It Down | Main | Props for Productivity »

Advertise

Related Resources

sponsored ads



subscribe


Prefer Email?
Subscribe below-

Enter your Email:


Powered by FeedBlitz What's this?

Current News

Support This Blog

My site was nominated for Best Business Blog!

business social media

Use these fast growing business social media sites to promote your business, feature your products, spotlight your business leaders, create links, and drive traffic back to your company site, all for free!

BIZZlogos - Add your logo - free link to your site
BIZZphotos - Add photos of your products and people
BIZZprofiles - Submit your profile and build your online visibility
BIZZspotlight - Spotlight your business with free links
BIZZvideos - Videos about businesses, products and business people.
BIZZbites - "Digg" for Business - Submit your articles and posts

know more media network

View Network Map

Network Feed List (OPML)

Know More Media Network
Feed


we support unitus

PRWeb

Influencer



ProductivityGoal is a member of the Know More Media network of business related blogs.

Here are some current headlines from some of our business publications:

ProductivityGoal

CallCenterScript

AdHurl

TheBizofKnowledge

LandingTheDeal

CustomersAreAlways

HealthCareVox

BrainBasedBusiness

TheInsurancePolicy

MarketingBlurb