Have you ever wondered why sometimes the actions you take are often misaligned with what you want to do? Why do we procrastinate, waste time or sleep in, when we can be doing something much more productive? Especially if it’s something we’ve told ourselves we wanted to do. It all comes down to how we prioritize every action we want to take.
Everyone has an internal priority system that has been shaped by their past and present experiences and responds to any current external forces and stimuli. This priority system takes into consideration our beliefs, desires, what we call essential and how much time we have to perform the task. The system contains an internal list of everything we want to do and could be doing at any moment. Each item in the list includes a priority value relative to the other elements. Using this value, we are continually making decisions about what to do at any given moment. Specifically, we always perform the highest priority item first. The list is also continuously updated as we go through our day and as our environment changes or we complete our tasks. The key idea to note is that we always act on the highest priority item first. Even if that item appears illogical or contradictory to what we would claim our real priorities to be. We do them first because at that moment they are ranked higher than everything else in our system.
Your priority system in action
Your alarm wakes you up at 8 A.M. so you can get ready for your final exam in one hour. When the alarm rings, you have several choices to make. You could immediately get out of bed and start getting ready, lay in bed for a while before getting up or you can hit the snooze and go right back to sleep. If you chose to hit snooze, the main reason is that getting more sleep has a higher priority than getting up and ready. Even if logically getting up to take your exam should have a higher priority. The fact of the matter is that at that specific moment, getting those extra minutes of sleep is what’s most important to you. However, once you’ve slept for an additional 40 minutes and the time is 8:40 A.M. your priority list is updated. Because the deadline for taking your final is fast approaching and you can’t be late, the priority value for getting out of bed becomes very high relative to other items on the list. In fact, it is so high you jump out of bed, nearly hurting yourself. You don’t even brush your teeth or wash your face, throwing on a pair of jeans and a shirt as you rush out the door.
Here’s another follow-up example of your priority in action. You fail a test because you didn’t start studying until 3 days before. Instead of studying, you spent most of the previous two weeks playing the new Madden because… priorities. If you’re anything like most people or me, these examples might seem all too familiar. Maybe not the specifics but we can all relate to the broad details at some point in our lives. Waiting until the last minute to do something because there’s always something else to do. How can we fix this? How can we recalibrate our priority system so that we always do the most important things when it’s time to do them?
Before we can fix anything, we need to learn a bit more about how the priority score is calculated and see if any options for affecting that calculation is available to us. The priority score for any task is determined by multiple parameters. These include how much time is left to complete the job, it’s importance, and how much value we place on it. Some tasks are more easily manipulated than others. Exams might have an enforceable deadline with no opportunity to change it. We can try to set deadlines for our goals, however, without an external body to enforce the deadline or extreme discipline, those deadlines become very easy to ignore. There’s often no repercussion to pushing back arbitrary due dates that we have set for ourselves. Other tasks can be critical, but that doesn’t always mean we will do them on time, it just means we will do them when the time comes. This is similar to staying up all night to write a 12-page final essay for class. Very important to do yet frequently gets put off until the last minute.
Finally, we can consider our values. This is unique because we have full freedom in determining what our personal values are. The ability of our values to get us to act cannot be overstated. Values are what drives us, they get us to pull all-nighters even when we’re tired. The problem is that often times, we fail to make the connection between our goals and our values. By not making that connection, the priority score for each task is not calculated correctly, often lower than what it should really be. Poorly defined values mean we don’t spend enough time on key tasks, and that we are more likely to wait until the last minute when we’re forced to act. Fortunately for us, we can identify our values. All we need is some time to reflect, our values will reveal themselves to us. They reveal themselves through our past actions and our own vision of our future.
To start identifying our values, we need to ask ourselves a couple questions that will help shine a light on to them.
What have I done easily and often in the past with no external prompting?
For example, where you the type of person always writing short stories in your journal, drawing, building computers, or helping people and bringing them together?
What do you want to be able to do in your future, and why?
Do you want to help people, create different things, learn about the world, make people laugh? Asking why is also very a vital thing to do. You might want to become a doctor because one saved your life, and you want to help people similarly. Asking why helps anchor your future vision to the present moment as well as linking it to the past.
Answer these two questions as detailed as you can because once you have them, that will be your guide. You want to be a doctor to save people, that is your value and motivation. With those things in mind, waiting until the last minute to study for your biochemistry exam is not even worth consideration. You realize that there are people out there that need you to save them, and that’s all the motivation you need. If you find yourself hitting the snooze button or having an all-night gaming session, realize that you’re doing precisely what’s most important to you at that moment. You can change the choices you make if they conflict with what you say you want to do. Just ask yourself two questions, what are your values, and are they fully aligned with your goals. Then next time what you say you want to do should match what you actually end up doing. Cheers!
Leave a Reply