How to Teach Your Kids To Prioritize: The 4-Step Trick

Prioritizing can be a challenging task for us. We being the adults, still find it difficult to answer questions like what should be done first? What’s second? Which task can wait until the next day? Now take that confusion and multiply it by 100 and you get a glimpse of how hard prioritization is for a child.

Here are a few tips that can help your child become an expert at prioritizing and get things done more quickly.

Have them make a master to-do list:

This list should include the to-dos for the current week and the week after. The tasks should compile homework, upcoming tests, projects, revision etc. Every night, before going to bed, your child should review the list.

Prioritize the tasks according to the importance levels:

Ask your child to label each task according to the priority level. For e.g. ‘VI’ for very important, ‘I’ for important and ‘LI’ for less important.

Rework the to-do list:

Rank every task according to their priorities. Ask them to start working on the tasks with the ‘VI’ ranking, keep the tasks with ‘I’ ranking in the middle, and the ‘LI’ ranking at the end.

Cross-out the completed task:

Once a task is complete, your child should cross it out. This is necessary as it allows them to see exactly where they stand and what’s the next task on the list.

Prioritizing is meant to teach your child to use his or her time wisely and effectively. Once your children master the art of prioritization, they can identify tasks according to their importance, track progress, and finish them on time. This minimizes the opportunities to get sidetracked or stalled on less important tasks.