And then after he’s finished choosing all the imperative and important, he said, “I then take all four of the beginning lists and I stick them in my top drawer on the left hand side of my desk. I then take my imperative and important list and I fold it in half down the middle so that I can only see the imperative side. Those six things that I can see, those six imperative things, are the most important things I could possibly be working on.”
“If I’m working on one, two, three, four, five or six under imperative, those are the most crucial things for me to get done. Only when I have those done, or started” – because some of them you could only start like you make a phone call and set up a meeting and you didn’t actually get a hold of the person but you left a voice mail – “do I look at the other side of the paper.”
He said, “I flip the paper over after I’ve done all six imperatives. I then begin working on my important list. If I get through all 12 on both lists I then get my four original lists back out of my desk, and I go through the process again. I get another piece of paper out. I draw a line top to bottom down the middle. Across the top I write “imperative” on one side, “important” on the other. I then put six new imperatives down, six new importants down and I start over.”
He said, “I usually go through anywhere from one to two-and-a-half lists a day.” He says, “I can get about that much done.” Which would be anywhere from 12 to 30 things a day on his ‘to do’ list. This is an optimum way to prioritize for personal effectiveness.