Keep your eye on the prize: Whip your “to-do” list into shape

What’s important to you? What’s on your to-do list? Are the things that are important to you at the top of your to-do list?

Why not?

I imagine that everyone is asking you to do things for them, and not all of those requests are consistent with your priorities.

Don’t let them on your to-do list.

Your active tasks should only ever be the things that you (and your boss) agree are priorities for the company. If you don’t know what the priorities are, just ask. If there’s no one around to ask, look for the one that is going to make the biggest impact for your customers.

And when someone asks you to do something that isn’t consistent with your priorities, ask them question to help clarify if maybe their request is in some way consistent with your priorities.

And if it isn’t, let them know that you’ll happily help them when you get time and that you won’t  commit a deadline until it gets higher on your list of priorities.

I use a “backlog” to manage my tasks. It includes three sections – 1) a list of everything that I want to work on (and everything everyone has asked me to work on, 2) a list of what I intend to work on next, ordered by priority, and 3) a list of what I’m working on.

We use Asana at Tucows which makes it easy for everyone in the company to peek in on what me and my team is working on when they want.

To be effective in customer service – and business more broadly – you’ll need to develop a keen sense of your priorities, and those of your customers and co-workers.