Forcing Prioritization

A popular activity with youth and adult leadership programs over the years is to give each participant some amount of "money" and they are to "buy" the virtues or qualities they deem most important for themselves. Then the participants are asked to develop action plans on how they can emulate these virtues or qualities in their leadership roles-or develop them more thoroughly.

What if we took a twist on that activity and focused on priorities? Start by listing all your priorities for today. No ranking... just list them. You now have $100 to spend on accomplishing these priorities. Which ones would get the most "money?" Which ones would get the least?

Once you have this prioritized list in hand, think about your day. Are you setting up your schedule and activities to actually accomplish these most important priorities, or are you wasting much of your "money" (time and energy) on items you said weren't worth as much? The ROI (return on investment) for this activity might be huge.