Face it: You'll never catch up, so set yourself some priorities - Harvy Schachter

Face it: You'll never catch up,

so set yourself some priorities

Most of us have more work than we can handle. So the only way to survive,

Thomas Nelson Publishing CEO Michael Hyatt says on his blog, is workplace triage

Acknowledge you can't do it all

The idea that you will eventually catch up is a myth. That's impossible. You have more work than you can reasonably be expected to complete and it's not static, growing even as you read and e-mails slide in.

Accept the fact that some things won't get done

Given that reality, you must make peace with the fact that you must leave some things undone.

Adopt the triage principle

On the battlefield, medics apply triage to sort through the victims and decide where to place priority. They ignore patients who will survive without medical attention and those who won't survive even with medical attention, and instead focus on those that will only survive with medical care. Similarly, you must know which things you can safely ignore and which demand your intervention.

Categorize your tasks by priority

All tasks are not equal. And you can't decide which to tackle in the hurly-burly of the moment.

Apply the priority system developed by author Stephen Covey:

A - urgent and important

B - important but not urgent

C - urgent but not important

D - not urgent or important

Focus at the start of the day on your A tasks, and then if those are completed move to the B's, and then to the C's.

Practise 'intentional neglect'

Many people are late in meeting deadlines or forget to do something out of unintentional neglect. Instead, pick what you will neglect:

The D tasks.

If, however, your boss thinks something is important and you consider it a waste of time, given your boss's importance in your life you must reclassify it.

Do the next most important thing next

Start your day on the most important task and continue to tackle tasks by order of importance.

"The bottom line is that you must learn to say 'no' to the unimportant tasks, so you can say 'yes' to the important tasks and actually get them done," he says.