A Stress-Free Way To Prioritizing Tasks And Ending Busyness

Winning the game of life is not always easy.

If you’re like the majority of people, you’re probably used to struggling with learning
new things and getting on top of your everyday tasks and demands.

For instance, do you regularly find it hard to keep on track with your work tasks and
projects?

And how about in your personal life? Are you managing to keep up-to-date with your
finances such as your tax returns?

Fortunately, if you currently feel busy all the time and struggle to find enough time to
do the things you need and want to do — I have a solution for you.

It’s all to do with how you prioritize your tasks.

Get this wrong, and you’ll always be a victim of busyness; get this right, and you’ll
become a master of productivity and achieve your goals and dreams.

So are you ready to find your way out of busyness?

If yes, then read on…

1. Prioritizing Tasks With the Superstructure Method

Let me guess, you’re probably wondering what exactly is the Superstructure Method?

Well, it’s a fair question, as this method is not something that is typically taught in
school or college. (Although, I think it definitely should be.)

Put simply, the Superstructure Method is a way of quantifying the value of each of
your tasks — enabling you to quickly and easily put them into an order of
importance.

I’ve been using the Superstructure Method for many years, and it’s proven to be
incredibly effective and helpful in both my work and personal life. For example, as an
entrepreneur with a wife and two kids, it’s essential that I manage my time to ensure
that everything work related gets done, so that I have ample free time to enjoy with
my family.

I remember when I launched Lifehack back in 2005. I created the website to share
productivity hacks to make life easier. To be honest, at first, I was a little taken aback
by the incredible success of the site. In just a few years from its inception, it grew into
one of the most read productivity, health and lifestyle websites in the world — with
over 12 million monthly readers. I am sure you can imagine the amount of challenges
I personally experienced as the Founder and CEO of such a fast-growing company.

However, where there’s a challenge, there’s a solution!

In this particular case, to help me manage my overflowing workload, I created the

Superstructure Method. Not only did this help me get on top of my tasks, but it also
helped me to reduce my stress and put my work-life balance back in order. And as
you’ll see, it can do the same for you.

But before we dive into that, I want you to first grab the free guide 4-Step Guide To
Create More Time Out of a Busy Schedule so I can walk you through the
Superstructure Method in details.

Downloaded the free guide and ready?

Here’s how to master your time and accomplish what you want…

The first thing to know is that every task contains three components:

• Intention: Why you are doing it

• Value: What benefits this task brings you
• Cost: What you have to give up or invest to achieve the value (in resources, time spent, etc.)

To be able to identify the right tasks to focus on — and to spend the right amount of
time doing them — you’ll need to know how to evaluate them.

That’s where the Superstructure Method comes in.

This holistic method helps you put your tasks and actions in perspective. For
instance, if you were writing a book, you could use the method to plan, write, edit,
publish and promote your book. To do this successfully, you would need to know
which actions to take at each step of the way — starting from your initial idea and
ending with your book reaching #1 on the Amazon charts!

I’m happy to say that the Superstructure Method is easy to understand and
implement. You just need to follow four simple steps:

1. Step 1: Start with a Clear Intention

Consider all the tasks you have on hand and think for a moment about why you need
to do these.

For each task ask yourself:

• What benefit am I getting out of this task?

• Will this action help me make progress towards my goal or my company’s goal this week?
To give you an example of how to do this, consider a task such as checking your work
emails.

This is a task that will help you keep up-to-date with what is going on at your
company, as well as allowing you to see and action requests and tasks allocated to
you. It’s a task that when managed correctly will benefit both you and your company.

2. Step 2: Decide the Task’s Value

The next step is to sort your list of tasks into one of three categories. Where you
choose to put them will be based on what your goal is.

Let me bring this to life with an example that you can relate to.

You need to present to your company’s directors on the work your team has done in
the last quarter.

• Must haves: Create a PowerPoint presentation detailing the key tasks and projects that your team has
achieved during the last quarter. Plus find time to practice speaking through your presentation with
your slides.
• Should have: Feedback from your team highlighting important milestones and accomplishments from
the last quarter. You might solicit this feedback with an email, but ask for more detailed input via one-
to-one meetings.
• Good to have: Time to think about how you want to present to your directors and the emphasis you
want to convey. You may also want to spend some time chatting to colleagues to get their input into
your presentation.

The next step is to quantify each of these tasks into something you rank using
numbers.

You can do this by assigning a number value to each of your tasks. The higher the
number, the more important/urgent/valuable it is.

To make this easier to visualize, we don’t use a linear scale like 1 to 10, instead, we
use a set of Fibonacci Numbers (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc,) that naturally create a larger
interval between numbers.

So, using the example from above, you could choose to order the tasks as follows:

Must haves

• Create a presentation using PowerPoint (Value 13).

• Spend time practicing your presentation (Value 8).

Should have

• Send an email to your team asking for feedback on important tasks, projects and accomplishments
during the last quarter (Value 5).
• Meet one-to-one with team members if you need more detail on any of their feedback (Value 3).

Good to have
 • Time to think about how you want to present your team’s work to your directors (Value 2).
• Time to meet with colleagues to get their input into how you presentation will look and sound (Value
1).

3. Step 3: Evaluate the Task’s Cost and Prioritize

Having looked at each task’s priority, the next step is to evaluate each task’s cost —
specifically their Time Cost.

As I’m sure you can imagine, some tasks are difficult and require extreme focus or
perhaps even external help. The complexity or difficulty of a task is reflected in the
time required to complete it.

To calculate Time Costs, I suggest you make a rough estimate of how long each task
will take. This works best if you split the time into half-hour intervals.

0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3

I don’t recommend you have a task longer than 3 hours. That’s because any time
longer than this is indicative that your task is probably too big and would benefit by
being broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks.

Now here’s where it gets interesting…

Once you know the Value and Time Costs of your tasks you can calculate a final score
for each task — which will then enable you to prioritize your tasks from highest to
lowest.

How do you calculate the final score?

Simply divide the task’s Value by its Time Cost.

You can see this in action in the spreadsheet below:

4. Step 4: Schedule the Tasks

By knowing the priority of your tasks and the approximate time each of them will
take to complete, you now have the keys to take positive, productive action.
You just need to schedule your tasks on a weekly planner — choosing on which day
and at what time should you tackle each task.

Once you begin following this Superstructure Method, you’ll quickly overcome any
feelings of being overwhelmed. That’s because you’ll always have an organized
weekly plan that allows you to master your time and achieve your goals.

And there’s more good news…

After a while of following the Superstructure Method, you’ll notice that you start to
create a solid routine for some recurring task such as having regular meetings and
replying to emails. And routines are a fantastic way of saving you time and energy, as
they help you automate your tasks and keep you away from distractions.