When was the last time you looked at how you allocate your time? Most food truck owners assume that they dedicate more hours to strategic work than they actually do. On the other hand many food truckers assume that if they dedicate more hours to work the better. The key is learning how to prioritize tasks for your business.

Look back on the past month in your calendar. Add up the time you spent on your strategic priorities for your food truck business. Was it enough? In most cases you see that it was less than you thought. That’s because most mobile food business owners tend to do the most urgent things instead of the most meaningful things.

How To Prioritize Tasks For Your Food Truck Business

To help you manage your food truck’s workload and hit deadlines, here are 6 steps to prioritize time for your food truck’s most important projects.

  • List of all your tasks. Pull together everything you could possibly consider getting done in a day. Don’t worry about the order, or the number of items up front.
  • Identify urgent vs. important. Determine if any of these tasks need immediate attention. We’re talking about work that, if not completed by the end of the day or in the next several hours, will have serious negative consequences.
  • Assess value. Now look at your important work and identify what carries the highest value to your food truck. You want to recognize exactly which types of tasks have top priority over the others. Another way to assess value is to look at how many people are involved. In general, the more people involved the higher the stakes.
  • Order tasks by estimated effort. If you have tasks that seem to tie for priority standing, check their estimates, and start on the one you think will take the most effort to complete.
  • Be flexible. Understand that your priorities will often change. The key is that you also want to stay focused on the tasks you’re committed to completing.
  • Know when to cut. You probably can’t get to everything on your list. After you prioritize your tasks and look at your estimates, cut the remaining tasks from your list, and focus on the priorities that you know you must and can complete for the day. Then take a deep breathe, dive in and be ready for anything.

RELATED: How To Choose What Tasks You Delegate

The Bottom Line

To achieve the goals you’ve set for your food truck business requires both hard work and a smart approach. Time seems to be the most common hurdle for a lot of vendors. This is because goals usually have deadlines that you need to meet. Given this problem, you need to maximize your productivity in order to get to your goal sooner than your competition. This becomes possible when you know how to prioritize tasks that need to get done.

How do you prioritize tasks on your food truck? Share you thoughts on this topic in the comment section or on social media. Facebook | Twitter