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Issue 4 > Stop hitting the wall.

Stop hitting the wall.

Mark Winder on prioritizing tasks.

I had a cup of coffee with a good friend of mine recently. His name is Dave and he's a seasoned sales professional who's been in 'the game' for years! And that's why I was so surprised by the topic of our conversation.

Dave was hitting the wall! It happens to the best of us. We find ourselves working hard, trying to get the better of our competition and trying to go that extra mile for our customers.

But the trouble is, we end up doing a lot of small, insignificant things that end up eating away at our time and productivity. And when that happens, well—then we end up working longer and longer hours.

I remember an old boss of mine explaining this phenomenon. He told me that there are two different types of tasks: hard tasks and soft tasks.

Now, soft tasks are those kind of tasks that generally don't need to get done, but they're fun, or they seem important. On the other hand, hard tasks are… well… usually difficult, and also have to get done.

The trouble is, we generally like to push hard tasks out by doing soft tasks. But, the hard tasks have to get done—no debate. And when we let the soft tasks budge ahead of the hard tasks in the lineup of our daily time, well, that's when we end up staying late and putting in the long hours.

So the key, therefore is, do the hard tasks first. Its a simple time management principle. Get the big stuff out of the way first. Then see how much time you have left over to accomplish the frilly, soft tasks.

When you do this, you have more perspective on the soft tasks, and generally more time in which to tackle them. Give it a try and let me know how it works out!

Mark Winder is a sales coach.

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