Every Problem is an Opportunity
Every Problem …
is our Opportunity,
to Think Bigger,
REACH HIGHER!
Sam Jorrie
In Tennis,
We do not try to
“Win the Game” on every ball,
Our task is only to:
“Put the Ball on the Other Side of the Net,
and let the other Guy see if he can Return it.”
Summary:
Don’t try to “Win” on every act,
Sometimes you can Optimize your Opportunity to Win by merely
“Putting the Ball Back in the Other Guy’s Court.”
Robert Jorrie
April 5, 1900
DEFINITION
The word “Prioritization” means to put tasks in the best order so as to facilitate and better ensure complete and timely task accomplishment in advance of actual need.
WHY YOU MUST PRIORITIZE THINGS
Learning to Prioritize is one of the Most Important things you can ever learn because if you have “all the capability and all the horsepower” necessary to accomplish something and then, instead of expending your available time, energy and most importantly, your opportunity to accomplish something timely on other projects, you don’t perform those deeds that need to be done at the right time
then you ALWAYS WASTE PERFECTLY GOOD OPPORTUNITIES … and some of those opportunities may be “One Time” open windows in opportunity/time that may be open to you only for a short time and which then may close and go “away” forever … and you may never get another opportunity again.
For even the MOST COMPETENT person CAN’T “GET IT ALL DONE” unless he prioritizes.
Learning to prioritize things is the ONLY way to habitually get “all” of the really important stuff done.
HERE’S HOW TO DO IT
FIRST, CLASSIFY THE TASKS TO BE PRIORITIZED
Examine the entire scope of tasks to be accomplished and categorize them into these Classes:
1. This is a ‘Once in a Lifetime’ Opportunity task … If I don’t complete this task now, I’ll never get a chance to get this done, again.
2. This is “such a small task” in its need for my attention, that I might be able to “squeeze-it-into-the-cracks” while I am doing other stuff, if a little time arises unexpectedly … use that time to be productive and and “get-it-out-of-the-way” so that it doesn’t reach out and bite me, later.
3. This is a Very, Very Important task.
4. This is a Not Very Important task NOW, but completing it shortly, means that I will have accomplished something very important that will be “in preparation” for something else, which I will need when something happens later.
5. This is a task that is either Lesser in Importance or not “do-able” because you are missing something that you need which might not be available until later.
Then, within each class, arrange the tasks into the most important “order” and assess how much time, effort and resources you have available to devote to accomplishing them … putting those items that are immediately accomplishable at the top of each list … and adding some smaller tasks in case you suddenly get some unexpected time or opportunity to do them.
NEXT, ARRANGE THEM IN AN APPROPRIATE SEQUENCE … (there can be more than “one kind” of sequence)
“TIME ORDER ” SEQUENCE
Prioritize so that you first complete those tasks which must be accomplished first, recognizing that some things depend on other things on your list being completed (or sometimes merely “begun” first, even if not completed).
GEOGRAPHICAL SEQUENCE
Sometimes … For Example, when you have many errands to run, it is a good idea to “route” (prioritize) yourself so that you are not always doubling back across your travel path … so you may end up putting all your errands in a sequence that first follows your “going away” path and then follows your “return path”.
WHEN TO PRIORITIZE
Re-Prioritize each day, each week, each month, each year … and try to make yourself perform this critical sequencing only when you are at your daily “Mental Sharpest” ability.
Make a morning “To-Do” List and don’t forget to add a few extra “non critical” items to the list to give you things to do usefully, in case you complete your list early … “Early List Completion” happens frequently.
At the end of the day, it is important to review mentally what you accomplished that day and reinforce your accomplishment goals
this not only focuses you better on “How much you did Right” … but your errors for the day … and what need further to be done.
SPECIAL NOTES:
1. It is Vitally Important for YOU to be impressed with “How Much [I] Got Done” each day for this trains you to “Accomplish Things in Order” and further trains you to Prioritize.
Do not Fail to Reinforce yourself daily …
your Mental Attitude
Genuinely Needs the Reinforcement.
2. But after you have reinforced your Attitude, it is THEN important for those items to be “scratched off” the list and “disappear” from that list SO THAT YOU CAN ONLY “SEE” WHAT REMAINS TO BE ACCOMPLISHED and focus on that, next.
Make a Weekly List and re-view it mid-week, perhaps on Wednesday mornings, for example.
Make a Monthly List and review it every 10 days or every week to examine it for progress towards your goal.
Make a Yearly List
Re-arrange the lists, frequently.
and enter the “annual reminder” for your annual re-evaluations of the unfinished tasks on your calendar.
CONSTANT RE-EXAMINATION
You must constantly re-prioritize and re-evaluate “where you are” in the sequence in order to compare your actual accomplishments to your plan so you can adjust for finishing early or late or some interruption caused by the “normal” exacerbation of some unanticipated problem jumping up and really “use the time, well”.
It is also a good idea for you to carry a printout of your calendar when you expect to have to make prioritizations in the field.
Robert Jorrie,
July 6, 2001
bie and Becky were in bed and Abie, unable to sleep, was worriedly tossing and turning and rolling back and forth for hours.
In frustration, finally Becky sat straight up in bed and said:
“Abie, why can’t you sleep? What’s the matter with you?”
To which Abie replied:
“Do you know the $2000 I borrowed from Tsolly across the air shaft? Well, its due tomorrow and I can’t pay it!”
Becky got out of bed, walked across the room in the dark and threw open the window that opened on the airshaft that their apartment shared with the other tenants in the building.
“Tsolly!” she cried out in the dark.
“Tsolly, Wake Up! It’s me, Becky.”
After a few moments someone could be heard opening a window in the dark, and a groggy voice responded:
“Becky, is that you?”
Becky said:
“Yes, it’s me Tsolly, Do you remember the $2000 that my Abie owes you, that is due tomorrow?
Well, he can’t pay it!”
And as Becky got back in bed, Abie said to her:
“So, what’s all that about?”
Becky said: “Now you sleep, let him worry!”
What this Means to Me:
Sometimes when you can’t figure out what to do,
just put the Ball in the “Other Guy’s Court”
and let him worry about it.
Robert Jorrie,
1989
New Ideas cannot be administered Successfully
by Men with Old Ideas,
for the First Essential of Doing a job Well
is the Wish to see the job Done At All.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
When looking for worms,
you must kick over every rock and look beneath.
It’s True,
sometimes you find a scorpion,
but sometimes you find a worm.
So the Best Thing to do is to Kick over every rock.
Given to me by
Sam Jorrie
If you see things negatively, you will always see “reasons” why things won’t work.
and it is always alot easier and “safer” to do that,
than to find a way
to make things work out right.
Robert Jorrie
The Will to Win is Nothing
without the Will to Prepare to Win.
Vincent T. Lombardi
If with pleasure
You are viewing
Any work a man is doing,
If you like him or You love him,
Tell him Now!
Don’t withhold your appreciation
‘Til the person makes oration
and He lies with snowy lilies
O’er his brow.
For no matter how you shout it
He won’t care to know about it
For he cannot read his tombstone.
When he is dead!
Walter S. Poage, Jr.
1950
The Executive Secretary’s of very important bosses of very large companies are highly paid to protect their bosses from matters the boss finds bothersome.
So if you call for the CEO of a large Corporation, and his secretary does not know who you are, or if she does not know what you are calling about,
you can almost never reach him.
You will be told that “he is in a meeting,” “he is out of town,” “he is in transit,” “he is out of the country” “he is on vacation” “he is at the Dr.” etc.
and then, at the end of making that excuse, the secretary will ask if “there is anything I can do for you?”
These secretarys routinely dispose of many things that they think are bothersome to their bosses.
However, Bosses are trained all through their managment development to “always back” their lower level Managers, except in case of extreme abuse.
Thus, if you approach a CEO of some big outfit to try to get something done, you will likely never reach him, but will constantly be unable to “get past” his secretary.
And, if you ever did reach him, he is much more likely to decline granting you what you want than the secretary is.
SO HERE IS A WAY TO GET “MORE” OF WHAT YOU NEED TO GET DONE:
Set up the scenario in which you cause her to do for you what her Boss would not do if you did, in fact, “get through” to him:
Call the President’s office several times, over several days, each day leaving a message for him to return your call.
Each time you do, the secretary will give you some new excuse as to why he has been “too busy” to return your call, and ask if there is something she can do for you.
But each time you do, you should refrain politely from telling her what you want.
After 4 or 5 calls to her office, she will be highly compelled to try to dispose of your problem.
Thus, on the 5th call, say “Well, Ms. Smith, I don’t know whether anyone can help me but Mr. Jones, himself.”
She will then ask you to tell her about your problem so that she can “try” to help you.
Now, she will be very motivated to solve your problem to avoid your persistent calls to try to reach her Boss.
She will make telephone calls to the precisely correct person to expediently get done what you need, when if you had rached the Boss himself, he very likely would have declined you.
Here is an illustration that occurrred to me in 1967 which demonstrates this method:
Each year for years, Jorrie Furniture Company took 6-8 people to the Furniture Market in High Point, North Carolina. Because of the limited need for hotel rooms in that area at all times of the year except at Furniture Market time, there were “not enough” rooms built to handle all the buyers
and we were in the habit of reserving our block of 6 rooms at the Sheraton at least 6 months in advance.
One year, the reservation did not get made and about 2 months before we were to depart for market, we discovered that we had “no rooms.”
Having been Sheraton’s client at this Hotel for many, many years, I had to find a way to get those rooms if it could be done, and I knew that I had very few chances to succeed and that I would have to carefully figure out how to get them the on the 1st attempt, because if I failed, then the managements’ minds would be “set” and I knew I’d never get those rooms after that.
I called the Manager of the High Point Sheraton, and told him of our long patronage and our failure to reserve the rooms by oversight and asked for his help,
only to be told that the Hotel was “totally booked” and had been more than 100% booked for several months and that he was “very sorry but that he just could not help me.”
So I began to call the office of the President of Sheraton International.
Each day, the executive secretary asked what it was about and if she could help me. Each day, I declined to tell her, politely
and left messages for him to please call me on “an important matter.”
Of course, he never returned my call, and each day, his executive secretary offered me a different excuse as to why he could not talk to me.
Finally, on the 5th attempt, she again asked me if there was anything she could do to help me and I “relented” and said, “Ms. Smith, I don’t know if anyone can help me but Mr. Jones, himself.”
To which she replied: “Well, let me try to see what I can do.”
I explained to her that our Company had had a block of 6 rooms in that Hotel during those 2 – 2 week periods per year for many, many years and that we had never needed to ask for a favor before,
but that this time, we were “in trouble” and we “desparately needed Mr. Jones help.”
She told me that the High Point Hotel had been booked “solid” for over 3 months but that she’d try to see what she could do.
She made a phone call “from the Office of the President of Sheraton International” to the local hotel Manager,
and the local Manager, receiving a call “from the Office of the President, gave us the 6 rooms when previously there were “none to be had.”
Robert Jorrie,
1992