In today’s fast-paced business environment, it’s no surprise that we all feel overwhelmed. In a productivity post, Alan Henry at Lifehacker, talks about the benefit of using a productivity method that allows you to customize and build a process that suits you: the Tag-It Approach.
For those of you already familiar with productivity techniques, like David Allen’s GTD® (Getting Things Done®), you know that most of these techniques tell you to organize your tasks into three major categories. David Allen suggests:
- Things you can do immediately
- Things you need to follow up on later and that take time
- Things that don’t require a response, but that you need read or review
Yet, sometimes three categories might not be enough if you’re still overwhelmed with the number of tasks you need to tackle immediately. To solve this problem, Henry talks about the usefulness of the Tag-It Approach. Instead of three main categories, the Tag-It Approach uses five:
- Tasks that are urgent and important
- Tasks with big benefits to completion
- Tasks where there will be big problems if you delay
- Tasks from people who’ll nag you the longer you wait
- Tasks that don’t fit and are arranged by time needed to complete
Like Allen’s GTD®, the goal is to separate out all the tasks that are urgent and important from the less important ones that can wait. Feel free to customize the categories to best suit your own personal needs. Adding more categories can sometimes makes it easier to prioritize. So, the next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, you might want to think Tag-It.
With Tag-It you can regain control and get back on your way! To learn more about the Tag-It Approach, check out this post by Avani Metha.
