The Priority Hierarchy Dilemma
Right, so this isn’t a well-planned blog. I just wanted to write something up, and this idea popped into my head while guessing the mid-term’s syllabus with one of my friends. It got me wondering about the importance that I give to these college exams is even lesser than writing a random blog even when my exams are less than a week away xD.
A Short Background
Now many of you might say that it’s all about my priorities. MTEs are no longer my priority or rather interest, blah blah. That’s precisely what I would tell myself even. Although, the thing that gets me thinking is even though I am responsible for my own grades, how can I be so aloof about not studying for the exams? A possible reason: The course doesn’t interest me. Still man! It’s always nice to review and score better grades, right?
So what’s all the logic behind this priority hierarchy? Why are MTEs still not even on my list of things to prepare for? Why am I still more focused on working on my research project, interviewing the freshers, for god’s sake, or just reading random books or basically doing anything but preparing for the exams?
Now, after so much background, let’s jump to the main focus of this blog. Priorities! Is setting ordered priorities always good for self, or sometimes we need to make something our priority even when it’s not our priority? Now you may say again that I am just overthinking, but I don’t like to open that door, so I will go forward and write whatever I think can be the possible effects.
So, let’s begin with the blog. I am going to organize it into sections. If you want to read a particular section, you can skip directly to that section.
The sections are:
- The basis of the Priority Hierarchy?
- What’s the need for priorities?
- Does Priority Hierarchy play a role in our happiness or peace of mind?
- How do we decide the priorities?
- What are priorities anyway?
Disclaimer: You will find more questions than answers in the blog. I am not a philosopher, and the following content is solely based on my understanding of priorities. If you disagree with anything, please feel free to let me know!
The Basis of the Priority Hierarchy
What are the priorities we set really based on? Are these the choices we make after careful thinking, or are these just a product of our mood for the day?
Let me share my personal experience here. On most occasions, I have observed that it depends on what I really want to do or rather my lack of satisfaction ugh. There isn’t too much thought of what’s good for me in it most of the time. For example, when I write this blog, my topmost priority is working on my research project, which has been going for the last 4 months, and we haven’t made any progress. Still, I am highly focused on making it work and coming out with a paper as the leading author (dreams, you see xD). There are many things right now that I can do, like prepare for GSoC, which won’t be too hard for me to get into, I guess, study for the exams :P, or find something new to learn, etc. Still, none of those are my priorities because maybe I am quite satisfied with the efforts I am putting into that one project even though at the end, the paper might never come out :3
So is it based really on our satisfaction or “will to work” levels?
And then there’s a popular answer:
Do we treat priorities and tasks equally?
Well, maybe I do. Although there’s a slim margin: Priorities are what we set, so we are responsible if we don’t work according to those. Tasks, on the other hand, are what we complete after organizing them into priorities. The relation becomes: Tasks are organized into priorities which then are fulfilled.
What’s the need for priorities?
Well, this one’s a subjective answer, I guess. Instead of ranking my tasks into priorities, I could decide what I want to do at that very moment and continue with it till I get bored. This does sound like a possible experiment with a few caveats, though. Setting priorities eliminates a lot of mess in our lives. We eliminate the need to decide on many occasions saving time as well as stress. Furthermore, we keep ourselves from our own moody selves.
Sometimes, I get frustrated working on the research project and want to skip all the meetings and take up something new. Now that doesn't work all the time. We need to ponder all the existing priorities, and then only we can add new things to the list.
This brings us to another facet of setting priorities: the management stuff.
The effect of priorities on Time Management
These online times have presented a new challenge of time management in our lives. At IITR, we were busy almost the whole day, attending classes (yes, there we had to :3), group meetings, canteen talks, evading our friends’ hostel rooms, the great chapos, and now nostalgia hits me, so I am going to break the list here.
Sitting at home with a constant urge to keep me busy, it becomes essential to manage my time efficiently, or else the day goes by, and nothing is achieved. Ranking my involvements into priorities does help in better managing the time and tasks, increasing the productivity to an extent as well, in my opinion. That’s not always helpful, though. Sometimes it sucks not to work according to the priorities, which leads us to the next section. Before we jump right into the next section, a question:
Are priorities really required?
Does Priority Hierarchy play a role in our happiness or peace of mind?
How do the priorities affect us emotionally?
For a change, I am posing the question at the beginning of this section instead of the end. The answer to this question is not so clear in my head yet.
On the one hand, it does feel good to not waste time on things that I don’t want to do and instead put my efforts into more essential items according to my thoughts.
To counter, it becomes a little frustrating and sometimes overwhelming to have things in the hierarchy glaring at me, waiting to be given some attention. The transition between levels becomes a nightmare then. A good example of this phenomenon is when I have multiple meetings in a day. Online meets make it even more challenging because people assume that we can attend them anytime if the meets are online. Anyways, so moving from one meeting to the next endlessly isn’t a peaceful experience. Now, I could skip a few meets, but what to do if all are important? This isn’t a big issue when compared to big CEOs, by the way, and I ain’t any CEO (yet at least xD). At that time, we might need to restructure the priority tree and balance out all the levels to maintain peace :)
The importance of Balancing things
Amidst all the madness surrounding the priorities, tasks, etc., often we forget to enjoy the process of completing tasks. It is crucial to enjoy the short life that we have and be productive after all, right?
Now to answer the question, priorities affect us emotionally at the same level as they do professionally. We need to find a balance and not let the stares from the preferences hanging at lower levels bother us. After all, we forced them to stay low for a reason :P
How do we decide the priorities?
Right, so after too much gibberish, I will present a few factors that might make coexisting with the priority hierarchy a little easier.
- Don’t mind the big mouths: People who force you into doing things, completing projects, don’t spend too much of the mind power on them. Maybe this is why I don’t pay any attention to the acads until it’s one day left. But don’t do this for acads. Acads are important xD.
- Keep a Balance: Don’t forget to enjoy other things which are not the priority but essential for personality growth, social development, and self-enjoyment.
- Enjoy the small progress: When you switch between different priorities, feel a sense of achievement that you fulfilled one of the tasks.
- Don’t overthink: Go with the flow, don’t write a blog on a topic like this xD.
What are priorities anyway?
I think priorities are nothing but hype! There you have it, an unpopular opinion. They are just hyped up! We create the priorities on our own and then try to manage and solve them. So, there you have it:
Are the priorities just problems that we create to decide how to solve other issues in our lives?
Now, I am sure you would not agree entirely to this. I will appreciate it if you tell me about your take on the topic!
Conclusion
I think the priority hierarchy is an integral part of our lives. Throughout this blog, I dug up and looked at its effect on our lives along with its basis.
This blog wasn’t like the blogs that I have written so far in the past. It was a lot of philosophy mixed with a bit of personal experience. I don’t know if I will write more blogs like these in the future. Still, I would like to hear from you about your take on prioritizing things.
You can learn more about me on my webpage.
