HOW TO PRIORITISE

Hello everyone and welcome again to Transformation Tuesday. It\’s your host, Chris Jackson, and I hope you\’re having a beautiful week. Welcome to How To Prioritise. This is going to be a powerful episode where I\’m going to show you the best of the tools that I\’ve got about how do you prioritise your life, your business. How do you hack it to bits so you get more done. How do you be more productive? How do you get to the end of your day and you don\’t have the scenario that\’s happening for a lot of the clients and a lot of the people that come to me for help of them saying, Chris, I get to the end of my day and it feels like I haven\’t gotten anything done. I started with a to do list and I got distracted, I went off track, I did a whole lot of other things and I didn\’t actually focus on what I was supposed to do. So if you can relate to that, stay tuned because I\’m going to be sharing with you some really powerful techniques on how to avoid that. I\’m also going to show you how to get more done in less time, how to be more efficient with everything that you\’re doing in your work day, as well as just being more disciplined, more focused, as well as all the other factors that go into being more productive as we spoke about a couple of weeks ago. So welcome back to the show and I want to dive straight in to showing you guys what\’s the secret to productivity, what\’s the secret to prioritising, what are some of the missing questions, what are the considerations that we need to ask, and what are some of the ways of consciousness? The ways of being, the ways of thinking, the ways of feeling into this such that we can be far more productive and far more precise with how we are mastering our life. So for some of you guys, you might be able to relate to sometimes being a bit confused and not knowing what your real priorities are. So you might sometimes be confused about what should you focus on, what\’s the real priorities, what are the actual things that are actually truly important? As opposed to some of the emergencies that crop up from time to time. So if you\’ve ever had an experience where you\’re not quite sure what\’s important, well, I\’m going to give you some power questions on how to, like what\’s the power question, what\’s that secret question that helps you activate that deeper unconscious knowing. That deeper, that far deeper sense of knowing what\’s truly important. Hey Mike. Great to see you here, mate. So I\’m going to be giving you some power questions that help you go deep into your unconscious mind that elicit what are your unconscious priorities. So I\’m going to help you hack, completely hack, your unconscious mind. And by hacking our unconscious mind, what you\’re able to do is you\’re able to bring to your conscious awareness what is the true priorities of your life and how you\’re operating. What are your drivers? What are the unconscious programming factors that are going on that maybe you\’re not, you\’re unaware of. So this is really exciting when we dive into the unconscious mind. And for some of you, you\’re probably also wanting to make quicker decisions. More aligned decisions with who and what you truly are at your core. So this conversation overlaps with a lot of other areas including alignment, productivity, clarity, all those sorts of things. So these all come together in a, in quite an amazing tapestry. So first of all, I want to start with a little bit of a joke, which is, how do you eat an elephant? You guys might have heard this one. One bite at a time. That\’s the only way you can eat it. And sometimes in life, when we\’re looking at our business, our career, our life, there is some monumental projects that we think, how are we going to get through this? How are we going to do this? Is there enough hours in the day? How am I going to approach this? Do I even have the skill, the knowledge, the experience? How do we even tackle this? Well, this conversation fits in with exactly that, which is if we want to achieve great things, we need to get very, very tactical and we\’ve got to get super intelligent with how are we approaching things. We kind of just jump straight into implementation and just hit it hard because that\’s called hustle. And while hustling has it\’s place, if we are hustling without the intelligence, without the systems and without the structure and without the wisdom, then it\’s kind of like just revving your engine and just spinning the wheels. So I want to give you the tangible goal to overlay a consideration over this whole question, this whole topic, so you can get far more done with your day and be more productive, get more done, and make more impact in the world. So first of all, I just want to start with a couple of stats. Now there\’s some, there\’s been a lot of studies that have been on time management and on productivity. Now the first one I want to bring to your awareness is the 10 to one return on investment factor. So what this is is, this is that for every minute that you invest in planning, prioritising and getting clear on what you truly want to do, there is a 10 to one return on investment of time saved through saving mistakes, through making sure you\’re working on the right things, so you\’ve got the right work flow, you\’ve got the right process, and you\’re not just randomly working it from whatever pops into your mind. So by working from a list, from a sequenced, prioritised, ordered list, there\’s a 10 to one return on investment in terms of when you\’re planning your day. So that\’s good to know. That\’s great to know. Because every single day when you start your work, it doesn\’t matter whether it\’s in your business, your career, whatever it is, doesn\’t matter if it\’s business or it\’s career, it\’s the same philosophy. You\’ve got to work from a list and you\’ve got to have, you\’ve got to get really, really clear on your priorities. If you\’re not clear on your priorities, well, you\’re relying on luck to plan your life and plan your business and to create results. Now, I don\’t know about you, but I prefer to be quite tactical and quite deliberate in all the results that I\’m creating in my life. And I don\’t want to leave anything to chance. So we\’ve got to get really, really clear on our priorities and I\’m going to give you some tools and some questions, some processes and some habits along the way so that you can really start to prioritise your whole day, your week, your year, your life, your business with expert precision. The first universal truth that I think we need to overlay over this whole experience is that time is a funny thing. Time is this crazy illusion. But ultimately when it comes to time, there is never and there will never be enough time to do everything that you want. We just have to accept that. There is never and will never be enough time to do everything that you want. That\’s just the nature of this reality that we live in. The nature of reality is we only get a finite amount of time to exist. We are born and at some point we will exit and we will depart this reality. It\’s finite, we only have a certain number of hours, weeks, days, years. So what that means is, yes, we have to make sacrifices. The very nature of this reality means we have to make choices and we can\’t choose everything. We have to choose the things that are in the greatest alignment with our true self, the things that are most important. We have to choose things that are going to produce the greatest amount of value for our life. So that\’s the fundamental conversation philosophy that we need to really remember. And so it\’s not about doing everything, it\’s not about doing things perfectly, it\’s just recognising, well, yeah, we live in this reality and we have to make sacrifices. There are consequences. If we go right, that means we can\’t go left. So we need to approach this perspective of let\’s just forget the whole idea of trying to do everything and let\’s just remember, okay, let\’s just focus on the most important at a time. And that\’s one of these core concepts that\’s going to help you override any perfectionism, any sense of fear of missing out. \’Cause yes, there is a lot of missing out. In this reality, we have so many choices, there\’s an abundance of choices. Part of being a human, part of coming to this experience means there are sacrifices that we have to make in terms of we can\’t have everything. However, it\’s not about having everything, it\’s having the most important thing. So to go back to that quote, there is never and there will never be enough time to do everything you want, but there is time enough to focus on the most important thing. And that\’s what we\’re here to do tonight. This is a conversation of what\’s the most important thing. It\’s not a matter, it\’s not about doing everything, it\’s about doing the most important thing. Remember that. So first of all, before we approach any of this, we\’ve got to go back to some of the fundamentals. Which are things like, in life, what\’s our purpose? What are we actually here to do? So if you\’re in the context of your business or career, you\’ve got to ask, well, what\’s the purpose of your business or your career? What\’s the vision that you\’re wanting to create? The vision being what\’s the future projection of yourself, of your business, of your career? You\’ve got to know where you\’re going. You have to have the end in mind. Otherwise, there is no criteria. There is no consideration for what\’s important. So you have to future-project, you have to get clear on what\’s your ideal business, your ideal career, what\’s your ideal life? And you\’ve got to define that. If you haven\’t defined it, then you\’re flying blind. If you haven\’t defined your vision, your purpose, what you\’re actually wanting, what you\’re here to do, then you\’re flying blind. And you will be swayed by the winds of life. And not to say that there aren\’t certain serendipitous and luck moments that go through this life, but again, this whole philosophy is let\’s get deliberate with how we\’re designing and architecting our life and our business, so that we leave less of our life to chance and more of it\’s of our conscious creation. So in order to do that, I recommend you guys go and check out one of my earlier episodes, which is how to discover your purpose. And that sheds a lot of light on how do we actually get clear on what that even is. And that doesn\’t matter whether you\’re talking about your life or your business, that conversation of purpose is something that\’s ongoing and that needs to be regularly updated. And it\’s definitely worth a listen if you haven\’t already listened to that one. So go back and check out that episode. Fundamentally, what follows from that is we\’ve got to get clear on, in coach-speak or coach terminology if you like, from the field of neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP for short, is we\’ve got to get clear on what are our values. Now our values, it\’s short for evaluation filter. So your values are what you believe to be important. Your values are what you believe to be important. And if we\’re looking at your career or your business, you\’ve got to get super clear on what\’s important for you. Now if you\’re in business, that could be sales, marketing, it could be social media, it could be video marketing, could be Facebook, Facebook ads. If you\’re in a relationship, you\’ve got to get clear on well, what\’s important to, what\’s important to you in a relationship. Maybe it\’s things like spending quality time together. Maybe it\’s shared interests. If you\’re, in the context of life in general, what\’s important to you? This is the ultimate question. What\’s important to you? Now, that\’s the power question. In the context of blank, whether you\’re looking at business, life, career, relationship, if you want to elicit the deepest, most unconscious drivers that exist inside a human being, that\’s the question to ask. That\’s the power question. So write that question down. In the context of blank, what\’s important to me? That question will help you elicit all the unconscious drivers that are guiding 95% of your decisions. Neuroscience has come up with a consensus that 95% of our behaviours are made from the unconscious mind, and our values make up one of the largest proportions of our unconscious filters, which is just how we make decisions. And most of our decisions are made outside of conscious awareness. Look at all of our habits. Look at all the, you know, when you hop up out of bed, are you aware of whether you use your left foot or your right foot? And a lot of the time in our life, we\’re not even aware of some of the choices that we\’re making. Because they\’re unconscious, they\’re habits. So this question will help you elicit what\’s truly important. Now there will be the unconscious values that you elicit, which will be an ordered list, a sequence of things, which is like a shopping list. And once you become aware of what those unconscious values are, you can now challenge them. Because your unconscious values are imprinted, they\’ve been conditioned. We have, as a result of all the experiences in our life, we now have a set of unconscious values, which are like operating principles. Emotional states that we\’re wanting to seek. Principles that we\’re operating by or standards that we are striving for. And for a lot of the time, a lot of us haven\’t actually updated or first of all, we\’re not even aware of what those values are. Secondly, we haven\’t updated them. So it\’s almost like we\’re operating on a pre-historic version of an operating system. And for those that are familiar with DOS, that very old operating system that came 20 or so years ago, or even longer. Then it can be like we\’re operating on a very old operating system. So we need to be aware of what are our values. Now these values are really important. You got to be aware of your values in the context of business, career, relationships, and life. And that\’s a whole process that I go through with my clients. It\’s an in-depth process but you can do a very, very simple rudimentary version of by just asking in the context of business, relationship, career, life, what\’s important to you? Now that in itself, that exploration of what\’s truly important, that is a journey. That is a lifelong journey. However, by asking that question, that\’s a power question that will help you get to a deep unconscious level of understanding. So that\’s the first element. Once we have awareness of what our values are, we can now challenge our values. Alright, so our values are going to be things like in business it might be, okay, productivity, efficiency, marketing, sales, something like that. And this is where we\’ve now got to check in and say, well, hang on, if that\’s what I\’m unconsciously valuing, or driven or motivated to experience, is that neccesarily what I need to value in order for me to be successful? So this is where we need to consider, well perhaps, maybe the things that I\’m prioritising aren\’t getting me the results that I want. And if they\’re not getting us the results that we want, well, we need to change our priorities. So sometimes it\’s not neccesarily about the, probably the productivity neccesarily sometimes of what we\’re doing or our competency, sometimes we\’re just doing the wrong things. And if we just changed our priorities, sometimes that would fix it. So it\’s almost like the culmination lock doesn\’t quite line up and the lock doesn\’t open. And this can be akin to when we\’ve got the wrong priorities we\’re focusing on the things that don\’t move the needle. We\’re focusing on things that simply don\’t matter. Think of, like there\’s so many people that focus on the non-important. People that get to their work and sometimes people, the first thing they\’ll do is they\’ll jump on the computer and they just start checking emails. Just because there\’s an email in front of them. So what they do is they just jump on there because they, well, first of all, what they\’re doing is they\’re focusing on something that\’s easy rather than important. So this is another concept is you\’ve got to focus on what\’s important, not what\’s convenient. So that\’s a filter that\’s playing out unconsciously for a lot of people. They just focus on what\’s easy or what\’s convenient, which is what\’s just in front of them. As opposed to deliberately designing and architecting their day. So you\’ve got to become the architect of your day, of your life, of your business. You have to consciously design your day or else it will happen randomly to you. So something to be really, really aware of is the filter or the choice that you\’re making between are you prioritising convenience versus true importance. Another filter that plays out here is important versus urgent. Now sometimes there are things that come up where we think that something is urgent, we think we have to respond to it. A classic example of this is when the phone rings. Or when you get a text message. Or when you get an email. Just because a text or a phone rings or the email comes through doesn\’t mean you have to respond to it. Just because it comes through doesn\’t mean you\’ve got to respond to it at all. If you have, if you feel like you have to respond to it out of habit, well, you\’ve just let something distract you. You\’ve completely let something just completely take you off course. And some of the latest research in and around distractions has suggested that it\’s up to about typically two hours a day, as a minimum, is two hours a day of lost time, lost productive time that gets created from us being distracted. So you\’ve got to stand guard at the door of your mind. You\’ve got to stand guard at the door of your office. You\’ve got to stand guard across every dimension of your life to make sure you\’re not being distracted by emergencies that really are not your problem. So you\’ve got to recognise if texts, emails, phone calls come in, you\’ve got to evaluate is it really your job to answer that. Is it your job to answer it straight away? Is it your job to answer it at all? Maybe, maybe not. So this is the thing\’s we\’ve got to get really critical of. So really this comes down to questioning all the habits that we\’ve got. You know, the etiquette of ah, someone sent me an email. I better respond to them. Well, if you\’re in customer service and that\’s the name of the game and that\’s one of the critical success factors, which I\’ll talk about in a second, and you\’ve got to respond within a certain timetable, of course you\’re going to do that. However, you\’ve got to consciously make sure that all the choices you\’re making during the day are in alignment with your priorities. And we\’ve got to make sure that we\’re not falling in, or falling victim into just, falling, just playing the etiquette game. So that\’s the one thing that we\’ve got to make sure that we are fully conscious of. Thanks Mike, yeah, it\’s about saying no to the things that aren\’t in our highest expression, the things that aren\’t in our highest interest. We need to evaluate, okay, a text or a message has come through. Is this a high priority item or not? And just because it\’s in front of us doesn\’t mean we respond to it. Completely. I want to suggest, as I said, with the critical success factors, I want to suggest that, and let\’s just keep this to the context of business and career. I want to suggest that not all things are equal in business. As I said before, there\’s things like sales, marketing, customer service, communications, management, all these sorts of factors. Not all of them are equally weighted. Depending on your job, your position, your outcome, your business, you\’re going to find that there\’s what\’s known as critical success factors, which are those major tasks, those major responsibilities that you\’ve got that move the needle more than anything else. So what I recommend that you do is you use the 80/20 rule, which says that 80% of the tasks that you do in your average day will only produce 20% of the results. So you can flip that. You can say, okay, well what\’s the 20% of your priorities, of your responsibilities that are producing 80% of your gains or your results? So this is a really important question to ask is well, what are those critical success factors? Maybe for you they might be things like customer service or marketing or sales. Maybe it\’s managing your team, maybe it\’s having team meetings, maybe it\’s emails. You\’ve got to assess, well, what are the things that move the needle the most for you? And become consciously aware, okay, these are my number one priorities. So if you could do, if you could focus on those top two or three priorities all day long, which ones are going to move the needles the most? So that\’s a really powerful awareness to come to when you know what moves the needle the most. So that\’s the key question here. In your job, in your career, what moves the needle the most? What are you on the payroll for? What are you truly there to do? And if you\’re your own boss, you\’ve got to check in and make sure that, especially if you\’re your own boss, if you\’re working for yourself, you\’ve got to know that that\’s definitely true, that\’s accurate. Now if you\’re not your own boss and you\’re working for someone else, you\’ve also got to know that true because you want to make sure you\’re working on the right stuff. You\’ve want to make sure that you\’re focusing on what the team needs you to work on. Now if you are a boss and you\’ve got a team, you want to make sure that of your team members are also aware of what\’s their critical success factors. What are they here to do? Why are they on the payroll? And typically, in my conversations with a lot of business owners and teams, there can be a big breakdown in communication between what people think they\’re there to do and what the boss actually wants them to do. Sometimes there\’s a big breakdown there, so important to get clarity on what the roles and responsibilities are. The next element here is I want to give you three power questions that are going to help you prioritise how you approach your day. And these three questions and really, really powerful, so definitely write these down because these will shift your perspective and they will transform how you view prioritisation forever. So the first thing is as I said before, what are the three most important tasks that you do in your business or career? So that first one is really eliciting what are the critical success factors in what you do. The next element is what can I do and only I do that makes a real difference? So this question is helping you realise, well, what are the things that only you can do that no one else can do? And I\’ll give you an example. For me, in my business, what are the things that I know I can do? Well, only I can produce the content. So physically right now, I have to be here on the video producing this content right now. I\’m not replaceable at this stage with my business model. So this would be an example of I have to be here delivering the content. In my coaching business with the one-on-one clients that I work on, work with, I have to be there. Because I am the face of the business. So that would be an example of where that\’s not replaceable. Now most of the other things I can replace, right? I can replace checking my emails, I can replace, to a large degree, social media posts. Like on my Instagram posts, I write them and I get someone else to schedule them and create the artwork. And a lot of the artwork that gets created for promoting this show, this show\’s also getting transformed into a podcast, as well, so that\’s all automated. That\’s all outsourced. So I\’ve gone through my whole entire business and I\’ve actually evaluated every single task, every function, and I\’ve said, well, what do I need to do? And what can someone else do? So this question of well, what do I have to do, that answers the question of well, what do we do, what do we delete, what do we defer, what do we delegate? What do we eliminate? So, powerful question to ask is what can I do and only I do that makes a difference? Then the third question is what is the most valuable use of my time right now? What\’s the most valuable use of my time right now? Now that question starts to get at the heart of, well, we\’re looking at value. What is valuable? Now you\’ve got to look at the, you\’ve got to look that from the perspective of output. What are your goals? What are the tangible output factors that you\’re looking to create? And you\’ve got to be able to assess value by looking at the results that you\’re creating. So this is more about, this conversation is more about results than process. This conversation is about output, and productive output, not neccesarily convenience or enjoyment. Now ideally, in the ideal scenario, we end up focusing on the things that we are the most productive at and also the things that we love. Now that\’s the ultimate harmony in business is where you\’re doing what you love. And when you\’re in your zone of genius, so that means your productivity is incredibly high, you love what you\’re doing, and you feel a passion, you feel a calling for what you\’re doing. Now that\’s an overlap of all those forces, which is, that\’s the holy grail. And I like to think that I experience that on a daily basis. So I feel very blessed to be able to do that. So I would also encourage you to inquire how can you do more of what you love that\’s also higher value. And admittedly as well, some of the times, the things that we do are not neccesarily high value. Sometimes what comes in to consideration is enjoyment. It comes in to what are we passionate about? Sometimes you know, you might volunteer. You could say that there\’s not a lot of value in volunteering from a financial perspective, but it\’s more of a spiritual value. It\’s more of a contribution value. So again, we need to define, well, what is value for us in the context that we\’re talking about. So how else do we want to prioritise? Well some of the other factors to consider your prioritisation are going to be well, what are the areas of life that you\’re prioritising or not prioritising. So what do I mean by that? Well, the areas of life are things like you health, your relationships, your finances, your business, your lifestyle, where you live. Your dreams in terms of your dream projects, the things that you want to, your passion projects. What are the things you want to create in this world? As well as things like diet and exercise. So you\’ve got to get clear on, well, what are all the other dimensions of life and how am I prioritising those, as well? So not just business and career but every dimension of life. And we\’ve got to make sure that we are adequately recognising the priorities that exist across all those dimensions. Let me give you some examples. I originally didn\’t used to prioritise my health. I just thought health was, well, oof. Well, I\’ll just eat whatever I like. I just do a bit of exercise and I reckon, I reckon I\’ll live a pretty good long, a pretty long, healthy life. But then I started to look at it and I started to recognise, well hang on, if I not taking care of my gut health, if I\’m not eating, getting the right amount of nutrients, if I\’m not really having the highest nutritional intake, then that\’s going to affect me. That\’s going to affect my productivity. That\’s going to affect my energy. That\’s going to affect my vitality. And it definitely going to affect the amount of time that I have to live in this life. So I asked myself the question, how long do I want to live? And what sort of quality of life do I want? So that would be another example of some questions that you can ask that are really going to challenge your perspective around health and nutrition and vitality. How long do you want to live? And what sort of quality do you want to live? And it\’s akin to looking at if you\’re driving around in a car and your car hasn\’t been serviced and it\’s blowing smoke, right? Well, you can\’t possibly perform at 100%, you can\’t possibly perform at your ultimate degree of productivity or output. Well, it\’s the same, same thing goes for your health. So you\’ve also got to check in all those different dimensions of your life, how are you prioritising those? And the question to ask there would be, in the context of your life, what\’s important? In the context of your life, what\’s important? Now that will help you elicit your unconscious values, that will now give you the categories of life, all the other things that are important. And you can look through those and find out, okay, which of those have you been prioritising? Which have you not been prioritising? And for me, when I did my values elicitation around my life, I realised that my health, I didn\’t value it at all. And there was a conflict. \’Cause I looked at it and health was probably at the bottom of my list. And I thought, that\’s a problem. It\’s a problem because if I don\’t value my health, there will be dire consequences. And I didn\’t want to live my life having consequences around my health. So that\’s just an example of how we need to scrutinise all of our priorities and not neccesarily judge it or diminish our priorities, but just recognise that yes, there are inherent sacrifices that we have to make. So if you\’re prioritising one thing over another, well, yes, there\’s a sacrifice there. We just need to get to a point within ourselves where the sacrifice is in alignment with what we want to experience because something is genuinely more important than another. Not everything is going to be equally important. It can\’t possibly be. That\’s the whole principle and philosophy of life. Not everything is important. The whole purpose of living this life is to focus on what we believe to be important. And one of my mentors, one of my great mentors by the name of Joe Parna, you know, Joe told me one time, he said that, \”Success in life is knowing what\’s important.\” He said that failure in life is not knowing what\’s important. But success in life is knowing what\’s important and doing something about it. I\’ll say that again. Failure in life is not knowing what\’s important. Success in life is knowing what\’s important and doing something about it. And that\’s what this whole conversation is about. It\’s about getting conscious of our true priorities. And there\’s so many people that get caught up in the minutia of social media and just being distracted with things in life and worrying about just stuff that isn\’t even important, you know? Just like, you know, for example, there\’s, when I was in Bali a couple of months ago, there was a lady at the airport there who was complaining because the bags hadn\’t come out yet. And they were going to take an extra 10 minutes for the bags to come out. Someone\’s complaining and whinging that their bags are going to take 10 more minutes to come out on the carousel. These are classic examples of focusing our time and energy on those sorts of things, just isn\’t worth it. It\’s just not worth it. So we\’ve got to check in and see, where is our focus, where is our energy in life going? Where are we actually focusing our energy and attention? Is it going on something that\’s going to move the needle? So I trust that these perspectives are great frames to overlay over your whole experience of reality. And to challenge everything that\’s in your experience. Completely challenge all the conditioning, all the belief systems, everything you\’ve been taught. Challenge the whole lot. Even use these principles to challenge what I\’m telling you, right? Everything, all these tools that I\’m giving you I want you to be able to critically think about everything in your reality. And ultimately, I want you to be your own self-guided guru. So that you can think for yourself and you can use these questions, use these frames, and use these models of consciousness to hack your reality completely. So the next area that I really want to introduce is it\’s not about prioritising easy. It\’s not about prioritising the things that feel good. It\’s about prioritising the things that move the needle. It\’s prioritising the things that are truly important. Not neccesarily the things that are urgent because urgent is just simply a perspective of time. Urgency is just looking at, okay, well, what\’s the time when this is due? Maybe you don\’t do it at all. Maybe ignore the time and abandon it because it\’s not actually a real priority. So just because something is urgent doesn\’t mean we should do it. Doesn\’t mean it\’s in alignment with ourselves. So that\’s another thing to recognise. And we\’ve also got to recognise that sometimes if we\’re prioritising easy, well, what is that saying about our character? If we\’re prioritising, well, I\’m just going to do the easy stuff, and typically, most people do the easy stuff first. And there\’s a, I just want to bust this myth, as well. Because a lot of people think, the first thing they didn\’t want to do in their days, ah, let\’s just do something easy. Like let\’s just check my emails. Let\’s just tick off a couple of to do list items. Well, generally what they\’ve found when they\’ve done research studies is they\’ve found that most people\’s energy levels are the highest at the beginning of the day. So your energy is something you want to be mindful of when you\’re doing these tasks. You want to prioritise based on your energy levels. And there\’s a consensus in this industry in time management and productivity in and around you want to do the most complex, challenging, energetically draining things as early as you can because that\’s when your energy levels are going to be the highest. So it\’s counterintuitive. You might think, oh, let\’s just do a couple of little easy activities just to get into the flow, it\’s not like that. The more easy activities that you do up front, means the more energy you\’re going to burn through. Which means that when you get to the hard activities, whoo. Your energy level, the fuel in the tank has started to drop and you\’re not going to have the same horsepower. You\’re not going to have the same follow through. So you want to prioritise the most challenging thing, the most high value, not neccesarily the challenging, but typically, the most, the highest value, which in a lot of cases is the thing that requires the most amount of energy. You want to prioritise that first. Get it done first. And as I\’ve said before, there is never enough time. There will never be enough time to do everything. But there is enough time to do the most important thing. So that\’s the philosophy that you need to approach every single day. Before you get on your computer, before you pick up a pen, before you do anything, you want to have your whole day\’s priorities mapped out, planned out. Your planner, your day, your tasks, your accountabilities. Ideally, you want to do that the night before. And I spoke about this a couple of weeks ago on my productivity episode. So if you haven\’t seen that one, go back and, go back and listen to that one. And what I talk about in that episode is planning your day. Planning your day the night before. So again, when you\’re working from a list, you are so much more productive. And what it does is it eliminates what\’s called decision fatigue. We make so many decisions every day that if you can make the decisions and plan your day the night before, well that\’s one less decision you\’ve got to make the next day. Because you\’ve already got a plan. When you start your work, you\’ve already got a plan for what\’s the plan of attack. So these are the principles that I use now consistently in my business, and have done. And since I\’ve incorporated and embodied all these, my productivity has just gone through the roof. I create and I produce so much more. And I wish I knew about these probably 20 years ago. Anyway, I\’m sharing them with you now. And I trust that you guys are going to take these and implement these and see how you can infuse these into all elements of your life. Because it makes a massive difference in terms of your output and what you can create in this life. As I\’ve said, we\’ve got to stop responding to false emergencies. These false emergencies, they drain our time. It\’s like we\’re giving away pieces of the, it\’s almost like time is this big puzzle, and it\’s like we\’re giving away pieces of the puzzle to other people. And that\’s not to say that we don\’t necessarily, won\’t generously give our time to others, but we need to do it consciously, in alignment, if it aligns with us. And we got to recognise to stop giving away our time. Particularly when a phone or a text message or an email comes through, that\’s not an automatic trigger to respond to that emergency. A lot of cases it\’s not. And another thing to be mindful of as well is, are you the one that should be doing the task? Is it you or should you maybe delegate it? Or eliminate it? So a key principle there to recognise is, am I the one that should be even doing this task in the first place is another great question. Does it even need to be done? I recommend also creating a not to do list. Create a not to do list. A lot of people create to do lists. I recommend creating a not to do list, which is what are the things that you\’re just simply not going to do anymore. What are the things that you\’re going to eliminate from your life? What are the things that add no value or are low-value items that you simply want to stop doing? And when you stop doing them, you free up your time, your energy, and attention to then focus on the high-value activities. So in a lot of cases, it\’s not neccesarily about doing more. It\’s about saying no to the stuff that\’s not serving, which creates the space and the time and the energy to then focus on the important. So create a not to do list and really get clear on what you don\’t want to tolerate. What are the things you want to eliminate from your experience and from your life? So you\’ve got to protect your time. You\’ve got to see time, you\’ve got to see your time in your life as a fortress. You\’ve got to stand guard and prevent and protect people and things from taking your time that don\’t deserve your time. And I did this for a long time and I don\’t it so much anymore. Which is I used to be a big, I used to be a big people pleaser. I used to do things to make other people feel good even though I didn\’t even really want to do them. And I don\’t know whether you guys can relate. But I used to make decisions based on, or I felt guilted or I felt obliged or obligated to do something to help someone else out. And then after I did it, I actually felt resentment. I was like, ah, I shouldn\’t have actually done that. Now if you\’re feeling resentment or frustration after you\’ve done something for someone, well that\’s a big clue that you\’re probably out of alignment, yeah? You\’re probably out of alignment. So something to take a look at. So we got to get clear on where are we, where are we not actually being authentic to our true desires and where are we actually, where are we still running a pattern of people-pleasing and wanting to please others as opposed to honour ourself and our true desires? So I\’m going to wind it up there, guys. \’Cause I think I\’ve given you guys a lot of, a lot of tools and a lot of strategies that you can apply to overlay over your prioritisation. The biggest thing here really, as I said it, it comes back to getting clear on your values, which is what\’s truly important to you. And that question again is the, this is like one of these most powerful questions you can ever ask in life, is in the context of blank, whatever that context is, career, relationship, business, in the context of blank, what\’s important to me? And when you reflect on, contemplate that, meditate on that, speak into that, that is one of the most powerful questions you can ever get to the bottom of. Because it elicits all the unconscious programming that\’s inside of you. And very, very, also, very powerful for those of you in a relationship. Very, very powerful to ask your partner what\’s important to them in the context of your relationship, as well. Because you\’ll find out their unconscious drivers, as well. So, great for creating unification and harmony and alignment in a relationship, as well. Great for just finding out how someone else ticks, how they operate. So, powerful questions. And these questions are getting to the bottom of our deep unconscious programming. And we are unconscious beings. We have, we are creatures of habit. And we have so much conditioning and programming and embedded belief systems in, at the unconscious level. We\’ve got to be able to hack our unconscious mind to be able to override and be able to diagnose how are we making decisions. How are we prioritising? Where are the limitations within our thinking? And once we get to the bottom of our unconscious mind, it\’s only then can we hack it, can we then transform. As I said, there\’s 95% of our decisions on a daily basis are made out of our unconscious mind. And so this process is making us conscious of our unconscious. That\’s all for me, guys. I trust you enjoyed this episode on how to prioritise. Next week, we\’ve got a powerful episode. Next week coming up, I believe next week. Yeah, next week, we\’ve got how to unlock your self-esteem, a deeper level of self-esteem and self-love. Self-love is the name of the game. Self-love is self-love, it\’s confidence, it\’s self-trust, it\’s self-belief, it\’s feeling good about oneself, and it\’s the whole reason why we\’re here is to learn to love ourselves. So this is going to be a powerful episode and one of the best episodes I\’ve done yet, next week. And also for those of you that haven\’t already liked my Facebook group, jump in and like Chris Jackson Coaching to stay updated with all the events, posts, and everything that I want to keep you guys updated with. Also on Instagram, I\’m on Instagram. I\’ve got some pretty good content going up there, guys, as well. So Chris Jackson Coaching on Instagram. Also if you haven\’t already subscribed to my VIP mailing list, jump over to chrisjacksoncoaching.com and you can keep updated with all my events and all the freebies and all the cool stuff I share with my inner circle. So I trust that resonates with you. Thanks for joining, Mike. Great to have you here. Thanks everyone for joining and thanks for being part of Transformation Tuesday, again, for how to prioritise. As I\’ve said, we\’ve got a powerful week episode coming up next week on self-love, self-trust, and it\’s probably one of my favourite topics. So looking forward to, looking forward to sharing that with you guys next week. As always, wishing you a beautiful, fantastic week and much love. I\’ll see you guys again soon. Bye for now.