Use 'Forster’s Commitment Inventory' to Prioritize Your Tasks

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If you have a lot to do every day, it might be hard to figure out how to prioritize it all. You can try to decide what’s urgent and what isn’t, build a detailed schedule, and use tech to stay focused, but sometimes it’s hard to even know where to start. If you haven’t heard of it yet, you should consider getting familiar with Forster’s Commitment Inventory to sort it all out—especially if you’re a person who likes visual aids to conceptualize your day.

What is the commitment inventory?

The commitment inventory was thought up by British productivity expert Mark Forster, author of Get Everything Done: And Still Have Time to Play. Essentially, this method acknowledges that your time is finite, so you need to allocate your minutes and energy carefully, determining in advance how much time you can devote to any given task. In that way, it's similar to time blocking and time boxing, which call on you to determine in advance how you'll spend every minute of your day, then input it all into your calendar.

It’s helpful for when you don’t feel like your daily responsibilities contribute enough to your bigger priorities, when you struggle to turn down new projects or asks, or when you feel like you’re stretched too thin to do meaningful work on any of your tasks. Keeping sight of your larger goals, and how smaller daily tasks play into them, is a crucial part of any productivity plan because it helps you stay motivated.

How to make a commitment inventory

First, think of how much time you have in your day to actually do your work. It might be a standard eight or 10 hours, for instance, depending on what you’re doing, but you need to have a solid number in mind. Next, make an exhaustive list of everything you need to do for the day, from minor tasks like answering emails to bigger ones like working on a group-based project.

Do this in an Excel spreadsheet for best results, because you’re also going to need to figure out how much time each is going to take. If emails are going to take you half an hour, write 30 minutes in the column next to that task, for example. When you’re done, add up how many minutes all of those duties will take if you spend the amount of time on them that you indicated you have to. If they take longer than the time you have for the day to devote, you need to retool. Don't give yourself too much time, though—remember Parkinson's Law: Your work will expand to fill all the time you give yourself, making you waste time. So hack a few minutes off each of your totals.

You can’t spend more than 100% of your time—it’s obviously not possible—so next, prune tasks you don’t absolutely need to do and lessen the time you have to spend on ones that are less important. Once you’ve moved around the time you can give to each task, use the spreadsheet data to make a pie chart. That visual aid is going to show you what to prioritize for the day and what order to do it all in—i.e. biggest slice to smallest—so you can be sure you’re giving enough of your time and energy to the most important tasks.

From there, you can break the tasks down into smaller ones, but you should work in the order that your pie chart lays out.

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How to Apply SMART Goals to Your Personal Projects

SMART goals are typically associated with work done by a team, but you can implement this productivity-boosting strategy for yourself in all kinds of ways on an individual level, too. Some people use them to study, for instance, and you can use them for personal projects at work, around the house, or whatever else. At their core, SMART goals are designed to help you stay on task and focused on your outcome.

What are SMART goals?

At their core, SMART goals are designed to help you stay on task and focused on your outcome. If you’re not familiar with SMART goals, let’s break down the acronym:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Achievable

• Relevant

• Time-bound

It was conceptualized by George T. Doran in 1981, who took to the Management Review to criticize what he saw as many companies’ poor goal-setting.

He suggested goals should be specific to those five characteristics—though in his original version, the “A” stood for “assignable,” not “attainable,” so it does make sense we associate this with corporate teams (so workers could have more direction). He was all about having clearly defined objectives so every person in a workplace was on the same page, but SMART goals can be helpful for you, too, even if you’re working alone, because they help you identify exactly what your goals need in order to be met.

How do you implement SMART goals in your life?

SMART goals work best when you lay them out clearly. You should be writing SMART goal statements, making sure your statement contains all five of the criteria. For example, if you’re a freelance photographer working on a big wedding, you could write, “My goal is to have all the wedding photos edited and sent to the clients by next Friday. I will do this by setting aside time at 10 a.m. every day of the week to edit them in batches." You can also add something like, "Accomplishing this goal will keep me ahead of schedule, ensure I am paid on time, and earn me a positive customer review.” I often find that tying some stakes to the goal and making sure I keep them in mind helps me stay focused.

This example goal is specific because it’s related to one well-defined outcome; it's measurable because you’re committing to setting aside time to take it on; it's achievable because you gave yourself enough time to get it done; it's relevant because it’s related to a photoshoot you just completed; and it's time-bound because the schedule and deadlines are clearly laid out.

You can also use other productivity techniques to complement those five elements. For instance, with the SMART goal above, you should use time boxing and time blocking to clearly set aside that 10 a.m. work time in your calendar.

Productivity guru Brian Tracy says you should think of your SMART goals like a personal mission statement, using them to outline precisely what you need to do, how you’ll do it, and when you’ll have it done. The beauty of using these parameters to set goals is that anything that falls outside of the five guidelines can be disregarded so you can focus on the most important elements. Write them in your planner or on your phone, so you can always see them, and refer to them in all their straightforward simplicity when you need a reminder of what your priorities should be.

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