Setting the right priorities is something that is important in private life as well as in a company. However, it is often not so easy to focus on the right things. The crucial question is: what is the right thing to focus on - and what would be the wrong thing to focus on?

Even for students, it is important that they make the right decisions about what to learn. For example, if you want to know everything, preferably explain the universe, and then memorize an entire textbook for an exam, you will forget a lot of things on the exam and the lecturers will deduct points because you quoted a textbook instead of explaining things in your own words. However, if you have already prioritized your learning and limited yourself to the important content, learning will be easier and you will do better because you can deduce much of what you are missing from what you have learned and, to a certain extent, reconstruct it freely in your head.

In any case, a decision should be in line with the personal strategy and personal values. Doing something that goes against your values makes no sense at all, because you would be doing the job more badly than right. Doing something that goes against your values simply for the sake of doing it rarely leads to success and is ultimately counterproductive because it paralyzes you.

In order to set the right priorities, I have developed a method that makes it easy to prioritize tasks, wishes or plans. Instead of just prioritizing a task with a letter A, B, C or D, I take into account the expected success and the difficulty of solving a task when prioritizing.

This allows you to quickly recognize which tasks are really worth tackling. And which ones are better left for later or not done at all.

To do this, I create a two-dimensional space with two straight lines on a sheet of paper (or on the screen). One points horizontally and one vertically. All upcoming tasks can now be arranged within this space.

In the bottom left-hand corner is the zero-sum game. Tasks are positioned here that don't achieve anything and are very difficult to accomplish. I mark these tasks with the number zero.

If you divide up your tasks with the help of this graphic, you can prioritize them much better:

At the bottom right are tasks that are difficult but would also bring a lot. These tasks are given the "P" because they are postponed.

At the top level, things start to become more concrete and interesting. At the top left are the tasks that are an easy game, but don't bring as much. I mark such tasks with the letter "B".

Finally, at the top right are tasks of type "A", which are very rewarding but not very difficult or time-consuming. These tasks should of course be completed immediately.

Tasks of type "B" (easy but not very rewarding) can be completed in between if you don't feel like working a little more intensively on something specific.

It is important to understand that type "A" and "B" tasks do not all have to be equally easy or completed quickly. Rather, it depends on the ratio between revenue and effort, taking into account the current possibilities. If this ratio is high in favour of revenue, and the current situation makes it possible to take on this task, then it is weighted and prioritized accordingly.