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3 Top Tips on How to Prioritize Goals and Tasks [Benjamin Franklin Quotes]

By Effluo | Published May 28, 2022 | No Comments

To be successful in anything you do, it is important to set goals and then work towards achieving them. This statement seems so obvious, and yet it is so difficult to actually do it.

Some of us have many goals but they seem so out of reach. While others may not set goals at all and, of course, as a result they can’t reach the goal if they didn’t set it. This article will focus on how to prioritize goals and tasks using different techniques.

Goal achievement is a subject that has been around for thousands of years. So, how did people achieve their goals in the past and can we learn something from their journeys.

We took a look at a life and work of one of the more successful people of our history, Benjamin Franklin. He was instrumental in establishing this country, he signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of United States of America. And, let us not forget, that he still gazes at us from a hundred dollar bill.

It is no secret that Benjamin Franklin had many achievements in his lifetime.  We studied his work and writings to see what he had to say about goal achievement, specifically goal setting and how to prioritize goals to reach success.

Create a List of Goals

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.  – Benjamin Franklin

Before you can have any great achievements you have to prepare for them, set goals and prepare a strategic plan.

If you are not sure as to the goals you want to set, take a look at the life balance wheel exercise. It will help you see how satisfied you are with the different areas of your life and what areas require attention.  A life balance wheel exercise can help you with this task.  You can download a free Life Balance Wheel PDF for the exercise here.

Once you determined what your areas of focus should be, begin by writing down your goals for the different life areas.  These goals can relate to your professional, financial, social, and-or personal life.  They can be long term and short term goals. In the end, you will end up with a list of goals to pursue and list of things to accomplish.

Once the list of goals is created, it is a good idea to create a visualization board and bring your goals to life using imagery.  The visualization board summarizes your goals to provide a clear vision of what you want your life to be.  It will help you refocus on these goals regularly.

Prioritize Your Goals and Form a Plan

One man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan – Benjamin Franklin

After completing the master list of goals, you may end up with a plethora of things you want to accomplish.  The first thing that you may think is that there is no way you can accomplish everything.  That is fair, and that is where goal prioritization comes into play.   Not all goals are created equal.  Some are more urgent, others may require a lot of effort, and some may be more impactful than others.  In short, you need a plan of attack for your goals. 

Goal prioritization is very similar to task prioritization but on a larger scale.   The prioritized goals will become your guiding light for your daily tasks.

How To Prioritize Goals Using Your Mission Statement

Let us, then, be up and be doing, and doing to the purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity.  – Benjamin Franklin

If you haven’t spent the time writing down your personal mission statement, it is highly recommended that you do so.   Visit the Effluo page for information on how to find your purpose and write a powerful mission statement. 

Once you have a personal mission statement, review the list of goals.   The goals that are most closely aligned with your mission statement become your top priorities.     Prioritize the goals identifying them with a high, medium, or low.   You may also want to assign a numerical value to the goals identifying the amount of effort they will take.

This is a very simple and common sense approach, but it works amazingly well.

How to Prioritize Goals Using Goal Prioritization Matrix

Another great way to identify important goals is to use a goal prioritization matrix.  There are two types of matrices that are used for prioritization, Eisenhower matrix and the Impact Effort Matrix.  We will review Eisenhower matrix when we talk about task prioritization.  For goal prioritization Impact Effort Matrix or PICK method works the best.

Goal Prioritization Quadrant – Impact Effort Matrix

This matrix compares the impact of the goal to the amount of effort it takes. 

Quadrant 1 – High Impact and Low Effort – Proceed

Any goal that is impactful to you and your life purpose and will take low effort to complete will fall into this quadrant. 

This is the Proceed quadrant.  The P in the PICK acronym.  Some also call it the low-hanging fruit, quick wins, etc.  

Goals falling into this quadrant should be your highest priority. They are impactful and require low effort. This will be easiest way to see progress.

Quadrant 2 – High Impact and High Effort – Investigate

The high impact and high effort goals are typically larger goals involving multiple important projects. 

This is the Investigate quadrant. The I in the PICK acronym.   Really investigate these goals and especially take the next steps of defining your goals to understand if they are truly worth the time and investment.  It is always important to know your “WHY” behind each goal, but especially these high effort goals.

In the long run, these projects, if not handled appropriately, fall apart.  These big goals need to be addressed strategically and methodically.  Specifically, they should be defined and broken down into smaller goals to make them achievable.

Goals in this quadrant are prioritized in high and medium priority.

Quadrant 3 – Low Impact and Low Effort – Consider

This quadrant includes low impact and low effort goals.  In prioritization, they fall after the first two quadrants.

This is the Consider quadrant.  The C in the PICK acronym.   The best ways to address these goals are either delegation or elimination.  Consider either not pursuing the goal or if it is possible, delegating it to someone else.   If the goal is work-related, you can delegate it to team members.

You may think, but how can I delegate if these are my personal goals?  You can consider sharing some of the responsibilities with people around you.

Let us say that you have a goal to keep your home environment clean and inviting for people to hang out.  It is not a super impactful goal, most people don’t care how clean your home is, but it’s important to you.  As to the effort, it’s really more or less a fairly low effort task if you compare it to learning a new language let’s say.  You may either consider eliminating the goal and just start inviting people over, or you can delegate cleaning chores amongst the people that live with you.  Or, if you can afford it hire a cleaning service. 

Goals in this quadrant are placed in low priority.

Quadrant 4 – Low Impact and High Effort – Kill

The last quadrant has goals with low impact and high effort.  

This is the Kill quadrant.  The K in the PICK acronym.   These are the goals you should really reconsider pursuing.  

Let us take for an example a goal you wrote down, but you really don’t know why you want to pursue the goal.  It’s just something that everyone else seems to be doing, like getting up at an ungodly hour.  It is not impactful to you, and it takes a lot of effort.  Stop doing it and stop pursuing it.  Focus your energy on the goals that are truly impactful for you. 

Goals in this quadrant should not be prioritized, eliminate them.

At the end of this exercise, you will have a list of new priorities that are meaningful and impactful to you.   You can rest assured that you will not be focusing on the wrong things, and can move ahead with your professional and personal development with confidence. 

Define Your Goals  

Motivation is when your dreams put on work clothes  – Benjamin Franklin

At this point, you have your goals listed in order of importance.   Review the priority list or the matrix and begin defining your top priority goals.

The first step in defining your goal is to define your “why” behind the goal.  Knowing your ‘why’ will help you through those tough times and obstacles that you may come across.  Next identify whether the goal that you are planning to pursue is truly your goal, and is not in conflict with any other goals.  This goes back to relating the goal to your core values.

Finally set a start and due date and define the goal completion criteria.  This makes your goal measurable and specific.   Avoid vague goals, you will never know if you reached them because they are vague.  

Identifying goal completion criteria is an important step in setting goals.  What does your goal look like when it is completed. 

Divide Goals into Smaller Steps a.k.a Milestones

Constant dropping wears away stones  – Benjamin Franklin

Once the goal has been defined, the “why” has been identified, break down the goal into smaller steps, or milestones.

Whether its a short-term goal that takes a short amount of time to complete or a long-term goal, it is essential that each goal is broken down.   In the end, you will have a high-level task list of milestones that will lead to goal completion.  

As you consider the different high level steps, keep the length of completion for the steps to be no more than 3 weeks.  If the high level step will take longer, divide it further into 3-week increments.

Congratulations on getting this far.  You went through the planning process and created a list of high level steps you need to focus on.   These high level steps will be your guiding post for your daily goals.  Prioritize them in order of importance to the goal.  Consider using the PICK method to prioritize the high level steps.

At this point the process may seem daunting. Is it really necessary to do these steps? Benjamin Franklin strongly believed that without a plan a goal will not be achieved. Just remember, this planning process and breaking down of high level steps is not something you will do frequently. It can be done once a year, or once quarter (recommended).

Just give it a try and see what happens.

Create Daily Goals and Prioritize Daily Tasks

Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. – Benjamin Franklin

Daily Goals

This is the point where all of the planning will begin to manifest itself and materialize into reality.   Your goals will only come to fruition through little advances that are made every day. 

Take your high priority steps/ milestones and break them down into daily goals.   Try to think in goals, not tasks. 

i.e. I need to make five phone calls to different suppliers for a price comparison – NOT A GOAL   vs  Obtain the best price for my product – GOAL

The daily goals are your guiding light for the day.  If you achieved your daily goals, the day is a success.  

Daily Tasks

Only after you have selected a daily goal that is related to your steps / milestones, are you ready to tackle your task list.  There are different tasks that require different levels of attention.  Similar to goals, you can use the Impact Effort Matrix to organize based on the level of effort it takes to complete each task and the amount of effort they take.

If your daily activities are not related to your goals, you will not move toward your target. 

The prioritization of your tasks is extremely important to achieving your goals.   There will always be tasks that you have to complete that will have nothing to do with your goals.  The key is to prioritize the ones that are related to the goals and then complete the others.

According to the Pareto principle, 80% of outcomes comes from the 20% of causes.   Make the 20% of your tasks really count towards your goal achievement by giving them your best effort.

Eisenhower Matrix

An effective prioritization method for tasks is the Eisenhower matrix.   It is similar to the Impact and Effort matrix, but instead of looking at the effort and impact, it looks at how important and how urgent a task is.  Because this matrix has a time component (urgency), it is a better fit for tasks rather than goals.   Once you use both matrices, you will develop your preferences. 

Take the list of tasks that you have and place them into the corresponding quadrants. 

Quadrant 1 – Urgent and Important – Do First

Urgent tasks are typically bound by time, meaning if you do not complete them, you will miss some form of a deadline.  These are the tasks that you typically think of as something that must be done now.

Important tasks are typically the ones that have the most impact on a project and on your daily goal. To ensure that you are focusing on the right things and are maximizing your time management, complete these tasks first.

Quadrant 2 – Less Urgent and Important – Schedule

Less urgent tasks and important tasks should be scheduled.  This is the quadrant you want to work with the most.   You will not be putting out fires, but will be in control of your schedule and your time.   You will be able to complete tasks in a set amount of time and stay on top of your work.

Make sure that you set enough time to complete these scheduled future tasks.  Remember that you may get disrupted by phone calls and emails.  Nevertheless, having a specific time period dedicated to specific task completion makes the busy schedule look much more manageable.

Note – If the task is large and requires a lot of time, consider making it a project and breaking it down into smaller manageable tasks.

Quadrant 3 – Urgent and Less Important – Delegate

The urgent and less important tasks should be delegated.   Some people have a hard time letting go and delegating tasks at this stage of the planning process.  Remember you will be taking care of the important things in quadrants one and two.  There is limited time in a day and your focus should be on the tasks that are important to you and your daily goals.   

Whether you chose to hire a virtual assistant or enlist the help of your family do not think that you have to do it all.  Have a good understanding of what you and only you can do, and what specific tasks can be delegated. This will make your life so much easier, but only if you are willing to let go of some of your tasks.

Quadrant 4 – Less Urgent and Less Important – Eliminate

The less urgent and less important tasks should be considered for elimination.  Believe it or not, this might be the toughest quadrant.   We as people are primed for loss aversion, meaning we really do not like to have things taken away.  This includes taking away our tasks, for as ridiculous as it may sound, it is true.

Even if the task seems small and will take little time, if it is not important and not urgent, just get rid of it.   Keep your focus on the bigger picture and your strategic objectives.

Be strong, you will thank yourself in the long run. 

A Note on Multitasking

He that pursues two hens at once, does not catch one and lets the other go.  – Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin stated that it is not possible to go after two things at once, you will not get either.  We live under the illusion that we are capable of multitasking.  Recent research revealed that multitasking has a negative impact on productivity and task completion.   According to American Psychological Association  multitasking may seem efficient, but in reality, tasks take longer to complete with more errors. 

Summary

The best path to living your best life possible is setting a clear vision and establishing right priorities.  Goal prioritization can be achieved by using the impact effort matrix to align your goals to your vision and by focusing on goals that best align with your mission statement.    

Task prioritization ensures that higher priority tasks are completed before the lower priority.  The Eisenhower matrix is a great tool for prioritizing tasks.  

Put the Knowledge to Practice

Download the free PDF with both, the Impact Effort Matrix and the Eisenhower Matrix and take charge of your life.

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