If you chase two rabbits, both will escape. Makes Sense. In order to accomplish our goals we need focus. And yet we all spend much of our time multi-tasking and chasing @ least 2 rabbits at once.

We’re on listening in on calls, tracking email and reviewing that power point slide deck – all at the same time. Often, we make lists of deliverables, get through the first 5 work items on Monday and push the rest to the next day. If we repeat that cycle, by the end of the week we’re behind on some key goals. No worries, I’ll pick them up next week. Ah, but then there’s next week’s waiting for me.

Ultimately, we end up letting some things slip. I find that we procrastinate and postpone even more, as our deliverables add up. The fraustrating thing is that we have the best intentions. We want to be productive and we aspire to complete all our checklist items, on time. Often though, we’re chasing too many rabbits.

So, how do we avoid getting caught up in chasing so many deliverables at once? Have you figured out how to ruthlessly prioritize, focus your time and energy on what’s important? If you have, can you please share your secret? We're all trying to figure out how to maximize our time and get even more productive. Intuitively we know that when doing several things at once, we're not focusing. However, if often feels like just about everything is important and urgent.

How do we define what’s really important? How do you make major decisions? Here’s a checklist you could use to decide where to invest your time and energy. When faced with key decisions, take some time to reflect.

• Are my priorities consistent with my goals for this period? In a world where we have so many daily deliverables, what’s urgent vs. important?
• Is this within my area of competence?
• Do I have the time?
• Is this deliverable urgent and important?

Decision making is a key leadership skill – one that can be nurtured through a series of principles and habits. Here are a few suggestionsyou may find useful.

• Pursue excellence, not Perfectionism
• Outline / Write out your to-do list, in order of priority.
• Ruthlessly prioritize, your daily list can’t have 20 prioritized items. What are the top 3 - 5 things which must be done today?
• Work to avoid procrastination – one way to do so is to make sure our prioritized deiverables are tied to clearly defined goals
• Limit interruptions & distractions

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Now What ? All this means, you will have to say NO to some things and clearly decide to de-prioritize others. There may be several reasons for saying No or choosing to drop an important action item. Be clear in your mind about your reasons for saying no – it may be about timing, focus, impact orsomething else.

What’s important is that you have clarity about how you define priorities and some consistency in your decision making principles.