Set daily priorities and focus on critical work
10 min
By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to:
- Determine your top priority for the next day
- Communicate when you’re unavailable by blocking off your calendar
- Set your working hours in your calendar
Set your top priority for the next day
At the end of each day, make it a habit to reflect and set your top priority for the next day.
Prioritize one mission-critical piece of work you need to accomplish the following day. Then, review your daily schedule to ensure you have time to accomplish it.
- If it’s deep work, add it as a focus time task in your calendar. Focus time is for your deep thinking tasks, where you need to concentrate without distractions.
- If it’s teamwork, invite others to collaborate during open collaboration time. Open collaboration is blocked time when you and your main collaborators are online and aren’t in other meetings.
- If it’s a high-priority meeting, set a time to prepare.
- If you don’t have time allocated to get your priority work done tomorrow, adjust your schedule so that you do.
👉 For example: Malaya is working on several different marketing projects at the same time. However, one of the projects has an urgent deadline and needs graphic assets approved by the end of the week. Malaya decides her top priority for the next day is to review and approve the graphic assets. She adds a 3-hour block of focus time on her calendar so she can complete this task.
How to determine your top priority work
Make sure you are aligned with your team’s goals and objectives when you prioritize your top work item for the day. We recommend checking in with your manager if you’re unsure about your team’s goals or how to prioritize your work. Here are some tips for prioritizing your work:
- List everything you’re working on and then bring that to your manager.
- Ask your manager for guidance.
- “Here’s a list of what I plan to do this week. Can you help me prioritize my work?”
- “Here’s my list of priorities for the week. Can you confirm that I’ve ordered everything correctly based on what needs to get done?”
👉 For example: Sade, a member of an HR team, is planning his work for the next few days. He isn’t sure if he should finish writing the new employee handbook or start researching an investigation. He asks his manager for guidance on which task he should prioritize. His manager says that the investigation is more time-sensitive, so Sade blocks out time on his calendar to focus on this work.
👇 Here’s an example of how your calendar could look after scheduling time for prioritized work.
Why should you schedule time for prioritized work?
Scheduling time for prioritized work can help you follow through on completing those work items. It also communicates to your team what you are focusing on so they know not to schedule meetings during that time. Scheduling time for prioritized work can help you:
- Take control. You set the time to do the task and block out all distractions during that time.
- Stop procrastinating. Set a sensible and finite time for a task and stick to it.
- Help your colleagues see what your critical work is.
- Keep a record of what you’ve done.
👉 For example: Eloise is a designer working on a website. She puts a hold on her calendar between 9 and 11 AM on Tuesday morning for “Homepage illustrations.” Blocking this time makes it more likely that she will follow through on completing the work during that period. It also indicates to her coworkers that they shouldn’t schedule anything during that block of time.
👉 Another example: Rebekah is working on a research project with several other team members. They often need to ask each other questions and exchange ideas, but this can impact focus time if done throughout the day. Rebekah invites her team members to “Open collaboration” time between 1 and 3 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This way the group has scheduled time to work together without compromising focus time.
Blocking off a specific amount of time to work on specific tasks is also called timeboxing.
Block any "not available" times in your calendar
Block times you’re unavailable during typical workday hours. This can include setting aside time for lunch, appointments, taking your kids to school, or going to the gym. Scheduling time when you’re not available helps you manage your time as you prioritize top work items. It also lets your team know not to schedule meetings during this time.
👇 Here’s an example of a calendar with unavailable times blocked off.
Here’s a tip: Budget travel time into your unavailable calendar blocks.
Set your working hours and location
Let your teammates know when you’re online by setting your working hours and location. This is especially important if your team works across time zones. Teammates will be able to see if they’re scheduling meetings outside of your regular working hours.
Instructions for setting your working hours and location vary by product. To learn how to set your working hours and location in Google, visit Google support(opens in a new tab). To learn how to set your working hours and location in Outlook, visit Microsoft support(opens in a new tab).
Practice activity
First, schedule time for critical work in your own calendar.
- Determine your top priority work item. Ask your manager what you should be focusing on if you aren’t sure.
- Schedule blocks of focus time for this work. Specify the work you’ll be doing in the title of the block, or label it “Focus time.”
- Complete the work during the designated time frame. Honor the focus time you set for yourself! When the calendar alert goes off, be sure to shift your focus to this prioritized work.
Then, reflect on how these changes impacted your work.
- What benefits did you see as a result of this change?
- What challenges did you face during the process?
- How do you see these changes impacting the way you work in the future?
Bonus activity: Try some of the other best practices outlined in this lesson! Block unavailable times on your calendar and set your working hours and location. Then, ask yourself the same reflective questions as above.