Prioritise Your Time With The ‘90% Rule’

Prioritise Your Time With The ‘90% Rule’

Life can get overwhelming fast when you have too many things to do. Author Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less suggests a system of ranking and dividing your tasks to help prioritise them.

Photo by Jacopo Romei

With the “90% Rule” you rank your tasks on a scale between one and ten so you can more easily determine what’s important and what should be taken on first. Laura Vanderkam at Fast Company explains McKeown’s method:

You’re looking at a new opportunity. Rank it on a scale of 1 to 10 on how amazing you think it is. Then try this little thought experiment: “If it’s not a nine or 10, then it’s a one,” says McKeown. The goal is to take on tasks that are “a superb use of my time,” he says, “and I don’t mean that selfishly. I mean, is this the best way I can contribute to others, to society, is this my very highest point of contribution?” The point is that “we need to see the difference between things that are good and things that are exceptionally good,” he says. “It’s an important distinction in a world exploding with options.”

This simple method instantly separates what’s a valuable use of your time and what can wait until later.

How to Get More Done by Having Less to Do [Fast Company]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments