A little prioritization tip (beep beep)
Prioritization is something that so many people struggle with. A couple weeks ago, my manager (hi Nate 👋) gave me a great reframe and prioritization method that I want to share.
I’m someone who always has coworkers pop up in my Teams DMs. They might be asking for a design review, clarification on a team process, or looking for help with a Figma bug. While those little asks only take 5 or 10 minutes to knock out, they quickly add up and can cause me to lose track of time. Sometimes, those asks might be the only things I complete in a day! 🙈 While you’re helping others, your own work and priorities can fall off to the wayside. This might mean overtime or early mornings trying to catch up on your own stuff.
While this setup can work for some people, Nate mentioned a tool that he uses to help manage all these little things that he needs to do for others, but don’t align with his immediate priorities for the day: A parking lot! 🚐
How to make your own parking lot
Intentionally block off 1-2 hours in your day—seriously, mark it as a meeting in your calendar. 📅 This will be your dedicated parking lot time. I block off the last hour of my working day, but do what’s best for your schedule.
Create a space where you’ll list all the things people ask you for help with. These are those small items that are not a part of your main priorities. This list can be in a notebook, a large sticky note, Teams message to yourself, or in a Notion Kanban board (my preferred weapon of choice ⚔️). Pick a method that works best for you. Try to keep your parking lot list one spot so you can more easily keep track of things and refer to when you need to add something.
When a coworker asks you to do something, ask them when they need it done by. If it’s not urgent (90% chance it isn’t), tell them you’ll get to it during your parking lot time. This tells your coworkers that their ask is important to you, but that you have other priorities that you need to knock out first. Put aside that guilt that their work needs to be done ASAP! It’s OK to prioritize yourself and your goals first. 🌟
Add that ask for your coworker to the parking lot list your created. Then get it out of your mind and move on with your own work. 🙌
And when your parking lot time finally comes around, pull up your parking lot list and knock out all those little items for your coworkers!
This method might take a little bit of trial, error, and rejigging to work for you, but give it a few weeks to become a habit. Hopefully it’ll help you be more productive with your own tasks, instead of being reactive to all the things happening around you. ⚡
