Today another course update went live, for my Prioritizing Tasks and Managing Time for Greater Productivity Pluralsight course. I have now created, or done major updates, on 40 courses for Pluralsight (here are the ones I strongly recommend during my presentations to job seekers).
Prioritizing Tasks and Managing Time
These are things that YOU can do. You have control over what you prioritize (I know, you might have a project manager that prioritizing some of your tasks, but there are some that are yours to prioritize, like checking your email vs. getting a small deliverable done).
The funny thing is we all struggle with prioritizing tasks and managing time. I have spent a lot of time creating, and then updating, this course, and I STILL HAVE PROBLEMS prioritizing tasks and managing time!
This is not a “do it once and you’ll be good forever” thing. We’ll continually be up against distractions and “fires” and have to make decisions. Our decisions on where we put our time and energy will be influenced by emotions, other people, current events and circumstances, etc. But once you learn tactics and techniques, and they WHY you need to do this, it will be easier.
The Goal Is Productivity
I worked at a big huge government organization years ago. In my role the objective seemed like it was to look busy rather than to actually be productive. Don’t get me wrong… there were plenty of productive and effective people in that organization. My team didn’t have much to do, though. We were ready to serve, if needed, but sometimes there was just busy work.
As an entrepreneur I’ve learned that doesn’t cut it. Looking busy doesn’t pay any bills. It’s stressful to do stuff but not get any results (bringing money in).
I’ve hired people who I need to be productive. I don’t care if they feel busy, I care if they are working on the right things. Productivity is the goal. When you understand what that means and how to measure it you can easily plan your day to work towards productivity. Easy planning doesn’t necessarily translate to disciplined execution of said plans, though :p
On Updating Courses
Updating my courses is an intense exercise of prioritizing tasks and managing time for me.
I have to admit it is hard to go into something I was so proud of years ago and critically think through it again. I look at my language, my script, my cohesiveness, even my main messages, and think “wow.” Not “wow you are awesome” but “wow, how could you have not done better?”
In school I couldn’t stand to revisit old papers, and in the beginning of my career I couldn’t stand to look at old code (I was a programmer). Once I moved on from something I didn’t love coming back to redo or try and understand it.
Alas, I’m in the middle of a bunch of course redos. This course was good for me because I got to dive into three major topics: productivity (the goal), prioritization, and time management. I am guessing I gave at least 100 solid tactical tips that you could implement… this course is full of actionable ideas.
I’m glad to be done with this course on prioritizing tasks and managing time and I hope to not revisit it for another five years. Having said that, I wanted to share a very, very nice email I got from my contact at Pluralsight, who helped me get the course to publication. Melissa wrote:
Your overall slide design and course structure was superb and very well-organized. You also had very strong and consistent audio quality throughout. (Jason note: this took over a month. There are a million details, and to have her recognize the design, structure, organization, and the audio quality (editing, etc.) was really nice to hear.)
I also wanted to point out that I really enjoyed watching your course during my review. It was quite refreshing to watch content that I can actually really implement in the here and now. You had a lot of positive insights, and I had some great takeaways into how I can even make improvements in my own productivity. So, overall a fantastic course, all that hard work pays off 🙂
That was so nice. Melissa helps get a lot of technical courses ready for publication, and I don’t think she is working to become a developer, so a lot of the content isn’t relevant to her. But it was really cool for her to say that what I’ve spent so much time on will actually make a difference in her life.
The course is here: Prioritizing Tasks and Managing Time for Greater Productivity
If you want a 30 day pass to watch it, and any of my other courses, or any of the excellent hard and soft skill courses in Pluralsight, let me know. I might have a few passes laying around 🙂