From the course: Productivity: Prioritizing at Work

Work your priorities by activity type

From the course: Productivity: Prioritizing at Work

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Work your priorities by activity type

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- How do you know what an activity type is? Basically, any verb is an activity type. But if you want to use activity types to prioritize then you'll want to use ones that pertain to your life in a way that you can connect with them more efficiently and effectively. That means you want to get specific and make them deeply personal. Here are three examples of activity-based modes that you can use to prioritize your tasks. Number one, errand running mode. Have you ever returned home after a trip to the store and then remembered that you could've picked something else up along the way? Well, when I use errand running as an activity-based mode on my to-do list, I can review any and all errands that I could run and then prioritize them without anything falling through the cracks. Number two, reading mode. Here's how reading mode works for me. Any task on my to-do list that starts with the word read gets the term reading mode attached to it. Then, when I want to see anything I need or want to read I can look at the group of readings through the lens of that mode. Then I can prioritize what I either need or want to read from within that filtered lens. Using this mode is great if you want to get more reading done. Number three, making mode. This activity-based mode is a larger one that I use as a horizontal theme as well. Anything I want to make gets this mode attached to it, whether it be writing a blog post, filming a lesson for a course, or recording a podcast. Then, when I want to see the things I'm going to make I can isolate them quickly and prioritize them properly. The only way you can turn a priority from aspirational to actual is by taking action. That's why I insist that every task on my to-do list starts with a verb. It's also why I use activity-based modes to push any priority forward.

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