Let’s face it, life gets messy sometimes, and even when we think we’ve got everything under control, there are those moments when we feel completely overwhelmed. This is especially true for kids who are still learning how to navigate their responsibilities. Teaching kids how to set priorities is crucial, as it empowers them to manage their time and focus on what truly matters.
Prioritization isn’t just about making lists; it’s about aligning tasks with their goals and responsibilities. By teaching kids how to prioritize, we equip them with essential life skills that will benefit their future careers and personal happiness. Goal setting is a significant part of this process, fostering personal growth, motivation, and resilience. It gives children the ability to envision their future and take actionable steps to make it happen.
Here’s what we know about how to teach kids to set priorities:
Click here to jump to the TL;DR summary.
Introduction to Prioritization
Prioritization is that essential skill that helps us manage our time and resources efficiently by figuring out which tasks or goals matter most. It goes beyond just creating a to-do list, it’s about strategically deciding what needs immediate attention and what can wait. Teaching kids to prioritize equips them with crucial life skills like problem-solving, decision-making, and critical thinking. When children learn to prioritize tasks, they can handle schoolwork, after-school activities, and personal responsibilities much better, creating a path toward a more organized and successful life. This blog post explores practical strategies for teaching prioritization to children, helping them develop the executive function skills they’ll need to achieve goals and manage daily tasks effectively.
What Are Prioritization Skills?
First, let’s talk about what prioritization skills actually are. Simply put, they’re the ability to figure out the order in which tasks, projects, or goals should be tackled based on how important and urgent they are.
Prioritization skills are a key piece of executive function skills, which we need for managing time and handling our daily responsibilities successfully.
These skills involve analyzing and categorizing tasks based on how important they are and how much impact they’ll have on reaching our main goals.
This practice requires critical thinking, time management and organization abilities, and good communication skills. As mentioned earlier, prioritization affects both personal and professional life, and when done effectively, it helps us achieve our goals more smoothly.
Understanding Executive Functioning
Executive functioning refers to a set of brain processes that help us plan, organize, and complete tasks. It includes skills like planning, prioritizing, organization, time management, and self-regulation. These skills are essential for achieving goals and finishing tasks, and they can be developed and improved with practice and strategies. Many people, both children and adults, struggle with executive functioning challenges, which can impact their daily lives and productivity. Kids typically need to start developing prioritization skills around the time they begin school. Understanding executive functioning is crucial for building effective prioritization skills and finding success in various aspects of life.
What Are Some Signs That Someone Is Struggling With Prioritization?
What hints might tell you someone’s having trouble with these skills?
One obvious sign is constantly feeling overwhelmed with tasks. This often happens when someone isn’t clear about what to tackle first.
Another red flag is procrastination, putting things off until the last minute. This usually stems from not knowing which tasks are most important and can lead to missed deadlines, lower productivity, and negative effects on others.
Missing due dates is another common indicator of prioritization struggles.
People who have difficulty with prioritization skills might also struggle with managing their time, making them late or causing them to miss appointments or commitments.
They might also find themselves juggling too many tasks at once, leading to scattered focus and poor-quality work.
How To Teach The Art Of Prioritization To Anybody
Ever stared at a long to-do list feeling completely overwhelmed and not knowing where to start? You’re definitely not alone! Many people struggle with prioritization, but the good news is, it’s a skill anyone can learn.
Whether you’re a parent hoping to help your child become better at prioritizing or a teacher wanting to build these skills across your classroom, there are some simple tricks you can use. These strategies can help kids learn to prioritize effectively through making to-do lists and creating daily task lists.
And hey, you might just find these tips useful in your own life too!
1. Use The Eisenhower Matrix
The Eisenhower Matrix is a simple but powerful tool for anyone learning how to prioritize effectively. The matrix involves creating a grid that sorts tasks into four sections based on how urgent and important they are.
The top left section contains tasks that are both urgent and important, while the bottom right has tasks that are neither urgent nor important. It’s super important to tell the difference between urgent tasks and important tasks, as this helps teach children prioritization skills. Important tasks are significant and often need time and energy to complete effectively, helping children achieve their goals and handle daily responsibilities.
By using this method, anyone can identify which tasks need immediate attention and which can wait. This makes it easier to focus on the most pressing tasks without getting bogged down by less important ones.
For a free .pdf download of The Eisenhower Matrix, fill out the form below.
We also have a blog post that covers The Eisenhower Matrix in-depth.
2. Have Them Write Everything Down
One of the biggest reasons people struggle with prioritization is trying to keep everything in their heads. This quickly becomes overwhelming and can lead to burnout. That’s why it’s crucial to encourage anyone you’re teaching to write everything down. Writing down tasks helps children manage their workload effectively.
Keeping written lists, such as to-do lists and assignments with due dates, is essential for effective prioritization.
When someone writes their tasks down, they can see everything in one place and break everything into smaller, manageable chunks. They can then prioritize and delegate tasks, making it easier to stay on top of everything.
3. Teach The Pareto Principle
The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, says that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. This can be applied to prioritization by focusing on the tasks that will give you the biggest returns.
By teaching this principle, you can help anyone understand that it’s not about being busy all the time, it’s about focusing on the tasks that will make the biggest difference. This helps prioritize tasks and boost productivity.
4. Schedule Tasks
Create a schedule that lines up with the person’s priorities. It’s important to be flexible when scheduling tasks, since things can change, but having a plan helps keep people on track.
Help the person understand that it’s perfectly okay to adjust the schedule if new priorities or challenges come up. Encourage regular review of the list and prioritize changes based on new information.
5. Align Tasks With Long- And Short-Term Goals
The tasks someone is prioritizing should always connect to their overall goals. Teach them to think about how each task helps them achieve their short- and long-term goals. This is vital not only to manage time effectively but also to work toward their objectives.
6. Revisit And Update To-Do Lists Daily
Regularly revisit and update the to-do list. Encourage the person to review their list at the end of each day and include any incomplete tasks in the next day’s task list. Including due dates in to-do lists helps in prioritizing tasks effectively. The goal is to continuously prioritize, adjust, and manage their time to optimize progress.
7. Play Chess
Chess is a board game that requires strategic thinking, planning, and decision-making. It’s a perfect tool to teach prioritization, especially for children and young adults.
Playing chess also helps develop executive function skills, which are essential for managing time and prioritizing tasks effectively.
When playing chess, you need to analyze different situations, plan your moves, and make quick decisions under pressure. These skills are crucial for prioritizing tasks and making informed choices.
Chess can help you understand the benefits of focusing on the most critical tasks first and then moving on to less important ones.
8. Try Geocaching
Geocaching is an outdoor treasure hunting game that uses GPS to locate hidden containers called geocaches. It’s a fun and exciting way to teach prioritization to people of all ages. When geocaching, you need to use your problem-solving skills to find the caches hidden in various locations.
Geocaching can help you understand how to prioritize tasks based on the available resources and information. Additionally, it aids in prioritizing activities by associating the completion of tasks with the reward of finding a geocache, making the process both enjoyable and fulfilling.
Prioritization comes into play when deciding which caches to look for first based on the clues available.
9. Explain Your Own Struggles With Prioritization
There’s absolutely no shame in admitting that you struggle with prioritization.
Many adults face similar challenges with prioritization. Share your experience with others and discuss the steps you took to improve your skills. Talk about the challenges you faced, the mistakes you made, and the lessons you learned. Admitting personal struggles with prioritization normalizes the learning curve.
This approach can help people relate to your story and understand that prioritization is a skill that requires practice and patience.
Above all else, it normalizes the idea that nobody has it all figured out, and improvement is a continuous process.
10. Use Rewards
Rewards can be a great motivation for people to organize their tasks. You can use this when teaching the art of prioritization. You can make a list of essential activities that need to be done, and then assign different rewards to them.
Prioritizing activities can help earn rewards, making the process both enjoyable and fulfilling.
For instance, you can offer a sweet treat for completing one task, a movie night for completing five tasks, and a day off for completing ten tasks. This reward system will encourage people to prioritize their tasks accordingly. Using a reward system motivates children to prioritize tasks effectively.
11. Cook Or Bake Together
Cooking and baking together can be a fun activity while also teaching the art of prioritization.
Setting goals for the cooking or baking activity can help in prioritizing steps. Start by making a recipe with multiple steps and ingredients. Before starting the cooking, list out all the ingredients and equipment needed to make the recipe. Then, break down each step and prioritize them accordingly. This skill will help them with cooking and a lot of other life tasks.
12. Use Calendars
Calendars can be an excellent tool to teach the art of prioritization. Encourage your students to make a list of their goals and schedule them on a calendar. When making this list, ensure it’s attainable and realistic.
To make things more fun, you can choose a colorful, fun, and quirky calendar. This method will help anyone prioritize their goals and complete their to-do list on time.
13. Identify The Big Idea Or Most Important Detail In Photos Or Stories
One great way to teach the art of prioritization is by starting with something simple, like photos or stories. Encourage the person to identify the main message or theme of the story or its most prominent feature in a photo.
Identifying the most important things helps in effective prioritization, especially when managing a busy schedule filled with art projects, homework, and extracurricular activities.
This skill can help the person develop the skill of identifying what is essential and what is not, which can be important during the actual prioritization process.
14. Talk Through Big Tasks To Practice Prioritization
Prioritization often involves dealing with high-pressure situations that require quick decisions. Talking through a large task can help in the process of prioritization.
Encourage the person to break down the task into smaller and manageable parts, and from there, guide them into choosing the most critical step that needs immediate action. This practice will help the person get better at identifying critical priorities in a short amount of time.
15. Eliminate Distractions
Distractions can cause us to lose focus on our priorities. If your student is facing this problem, encourage them to eliminate all potential distractions by focusing on one task at a time. Eliminating distractions allows children to focus on their most important tasks.
Eliminating distractions helps in focusing on important tasks, which are significant and often require time and energy to complete effectively.
Ask them to turn off their phone, emails, or notifications and to only focus on achieving the task at hand.
This way, they become better at prioritization and develop a habit of focusing on the most important task in a given period.
16. Consider Executive Function Coaching
Some people may find it challenging to follow through with the process of prioritization.
Executive function coaching is an excellent intervention to help such people.
This process involves working with a coach to identify personal strengths and weaknesses and develop skills that enable better prioritization, such as time-management skills, communication skills, organizational skills, etc.
Helping Children Learn to Prioritize
Teaching children to prioritize tasks is essential for their development and future success. Parents and educators can help children learn to prioritize by providing them with practical strategies and tools, such as to-do lists and schedules. Encouraging children to practice prioritizing tasks, such as homework assignments and extracurricular activities, can help them develop essential life skills. Using visual aids like vision boards and the Eisenhower Matrix can help children understand the importance of prioritizing tasks and make it a fun and engaging experience. By teaching children to prioritize tasks, parents and educators can help them develop critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and self-discipline, which are essential for achieving their goals.
Overcoming Challenges to Prioritization
Many individuals face challenges when it comes to prioritizing tasks, including procrastination, distractions, and lack of motivation. To overcome these challenges, it is essential to identify the underlying causes and develop strategies to address them. Breaking down large tasks into smaller, manageable steps can help individuals stay focused and motivated. Using a reward system and setting deadlines can also help individuals prioritize tasks and stay on track. Additionally, practicing self-reflection and self-awareness can help individuals understand their priorities and make better decisions about how to allocate their time and resources.
Technology and Prioritization
Technology can be a powerful tool for prioritizing tasks, with various apps and software available to help individuals manage their time and stay organized. Digital calendars and to-do lists can help individuals keep track of their tasks and deadlines, and set reminders and notifications to stay on track. The Eisenhower Matrix can be used to categorize tasks into four quadrants, helping individuals prioritize tasks based on their urgency and importance. Additionally, technology can help individuals automate repetitive tasks, freeing up time and mental energy to focus on more critical tasks. By leveraging technology and using it effectively, individuals can develop their prioritization skills and achieve their goals more efficiently.
TL;DR – (Too Long; Didn’t Read)
Teaching the art of prioritization is crucial for anybody, and it’s a valuable skill that can help your students achieve their goals and improve their lives.
By understanding what prioritization really means and spotting the signs when someone’s struggling with it, you can identify practical strategies for teaching prioritization to your teen.
Some tips include:
- using the Eisenhower Matrix,
- writing tasks down,
- applying the Pareto Principle,
- aligning tasks with goals,
- playing chess and geocaching,
- cooking or baking together
- and considering executive function coaching.
By teaching the art of prioritization, you can help your learner understand why prioritization matters, and ultimately help them succeed wherever they go.
Further Reading
- Dartmouth College: Prioritization: an Important Productivity Technique
- Karen Deak: The Pareto Principle
- Rebekah Pierce: 13 Practical Time Management Skills To Teach
- Rebekah Pierce: How To Prioritize To-Dos In A Routine
- Rebekah Pierce: Breaking the Cycle of Task Paralysis: Strategies for Success