Whether you’re a student, stay-at-home mom, web designer, or CEO of a Fortune 500 company, prioritizing your work is critical to your success. Not prioritizing your workload usually results in being extremely inefficient and extremely stressed. How many times have you asked yourself “I have so much to do today, how am I going to accomplish it all?”

There’s no exact science to prioritizing, but there are several tips that should help you become a more efficient, less stressed version of your current self:

• Make a list – This may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many people try to organize their tasks in their head. You will often find that you feel much better just by taking everything out so you can see it in one place.
• Consider time constraints: what you absolutely must do today and what can wait until tomorrow or next week. Everything may be important eventually, but some things are more important now.
• Consider people’s limitations: all things are equal, move things that other people are waiting for to the top of the list. If you know your manager can’t finish your proposal without his part, that’s more important than what you always do on Wednesday that might as well be done on Thursday.
• Consider the consequences: are you going to get fired if you don’t do something? Will another task give you inside information about that promotion? Those things should be more important than slightly annoying the sales manager by answering your email a day late.
• Reprioritize as needed; Let’s face it, priorities change. While they’re at it, update your list. It will give you a sense of control over the situation.
• Eliminate unimportant items: Is there something on your list that you always push to the bottom and never end up doing? Then take it off the list. It doesn’t belong there.
• Don’t list EVERYTHING, just list the crucial tasks. You don’t need to list routine tasks (like lunch) or minor tasks (like checking your email). Also, you’re going into too much detail if you set prioritization as a task.
• Do your best to keep your list small; this means saying NO sometimes. You are not other people’s mole. Do your job and help other people with theirs when you have something to offer, but don’t do their job for them. Likewise, learn to delegate things to the people who are supposed to do them. Why book your plane tickets when you have an assistant for that?