AKA: When Your To-Do List Looks Like a Grocery List for a Family of Twelve 😅
Before
we talk priorities, let’s acknowledge the real villain: the to-do list that
somehow reproduces overnight like it has a secret side hustle. Prioritization
is the art of sacrifice. How to prioritize is not easy, especially when
you must choose between two good alternatives.
Leadership is the
art of making decisions. Saying “yes” is easy and comfortable, but what
we say “no” to defines our success. Great leaders know when to make
sacrifices in order to stay focused.
Imagine taking over a tech
company that’s hemorrhaging money because sales are down. Will you
choose to launch more products or cut the innovation pipeline by 70%?
That’s
the dilemma Steve Jobs was faced with when he returned to Apple in
1997. The company’s sales plummeted by 30% during the final quarter of
1996––Apple was on the brink of failure.
Steve Jobs would
eventually turn the company he founded around, but only after he had
made some tough choices first. Jobs reduced the number of Apple products
by 70%. Among the casualties was the Newton — a favorite of former CEO
John Sculley.
“Deciding what not to do is as important as
deciding what to do,” Jobs famously said. “It’s true for companies, and
it’s true for products.”
Jobs understood that prioritization is
all about making tough calls, especially when it requires favoring one
good thing over another good thing.
The Dangers of Not Prioritizing
"I'm
too busy" has become a socially acceptable excuse for any request –
from declining meeting invitations to refusing to take on more work.
Being busy is a badge of honor that makes us look and feel important.
However, chronic busyness maybe a sign that we're bad at prioritizing.
Prioritization
is not just essential for productivity. It also ensures that the right
things get done at the right time. The prioritization process lets you
and your team make informed decisions about what to focus on and when.
When we prioritize our work, we don't just focus on what matters the most – we also regain control of our lives.
The
benefits of effective prioritization are easy to observe. However,
failing to do so can be detrimental. Not establishing clears priorities
can be dangerous for you and your team.
Here's why:
If you and your team don't prioritize effectively, someone else – a manager or customer – will do it for you. When you don't have clear priorities, you end up saying "yes" to everybody. Saying “yes” to everybody is not a superpower—it’s a recipe for exhaustion and for making everyone a little confused about what matters.
Pleasing others does
more damage than good. That something is a priority for a third party
doesn't mean it should also become a priority for your team. Just because someone tells you their project is urgent doesn’t mean your team
should drop everything and start building a spaceship.
When you let others define your priorities, everything feels important.
Your team is stretching too thin
Teams
face a constant burden. They have too many problems to solve and not
enough time or resources to deal with everything on their plate. It's
important to know what amount of work you can take on or everyone in
your team will end up stressed out.
You sacrifice long-term benefits for short-term wins
Trading long-term gains for instant gratification might feel
good, but remember: eating the whole box of donuts is thrilling for about three
minutes. Don’t let short deadlines or loud voices lure you away from what
really matters. Prioritization is an investment, so consider which projects will
generate a superior long-term return.
Stop pursuing problems that don't have the most significant value for your team.
The wrong task will suck your energy
Ever spent hours on a task and realized afterwards you just climbed the wrong mountain? It’s like realizing you’ve been binge-watching a show for a week and the plot still doesn’t make sense.
A
toxic customer, a project going nowhere, or irrelevant tasks steal more
than you and your team's time – they suck your energy. Research shows
that a gap in priorities between an ideal and real life increases the
risk of burnout. Eliminate problematic projects to protect your team's
energy and drive.
Saying "no" to toxic tasks will pay huge dividends to you and your team.
You'll never solve the right problem
Prioritization
means choosing not only what problems to solve but also which not to
solve. If your team says "yes" to every problem, they're saying "no" to
the right ones. You can't focus on what really matters when you're too
busy.
Remove distractions so your team can focus on the right problem – encourage colleagues to say "no" more often.
“If there are nine rabbits on the ground, if you want to catch one, just focus on one.” – Jack Ma, Co-Founder, Alibaba Group
Most
organizations aren't great at prioritizing – they try to catch all the rabbits. Unless you’re a magician (or just really fast), chasing all
the rabbits at once is just cardio.
Most leaders aren't good at prioritizing, either. They make
choices in the dark, failing to understand how conflicting priorities
affect their teams' capacities. That's why most organizations suffer
from "everything is important" syndrome – they fail to separate what's
essential from what's not.
Building a culture of effective
prioritizing doesn't happen overnight. It takes time and effort. Most
importantly, it requires structural changes and a huge mindset shift.
5 Ways to Become Better at Prioritizing
# 1 Work smarter, not harder
If working harder was the solution, we’d all be millionaires with six-pack abs. Instead, try working smarter—the kind of smart where you avoid replying to emails at 2:00 AM and stop overusing sticky notes as your memory bank.
The
always-on culture is harming you and your team. There are many reasons
why it has to go. Hard work often disguises team inefficiencies. People
have to work more and more hours to compensate for ineffective
prioritization.
Often team members overwork themselves for the
wrong reasons. Either they want to achieve too many things or are trying
to meet others' expectations. Take virtual presenteeism as an example:
the average worker spends an additional 67 minutes online daily to be
perceived as a hard worker.
Shifting our relationship with the
idea of incompleteness is liberating. Realizing that we're never done
working releases a lot of pressure and unnecessary anxiety.
Working
smarter, not harder, is about prioritizing quality over quantity – or
outcome over effort. With my consulting clients, I see a lot of people
that just care about velocity but never pause to reflect on their
priorities. Moving fast in the wrong direction will get you nowhere.
Why not work smarter instead of harder?
Working
smarter is about being more intentional about how you work. It seems
obvious, yet it requires reframing our relationship with productivity –
to shift our focus from input to outcome. From focusing on high-impact
tasks and cutting down your to-do list to concentrating on deep work and
tackling tasks in chunks (rather than one by one).
Start by rejecting the notion that everything is urgent, critical, and important.
# 2 Separate essential work from non-essential
Not all tasks are created equal. Some are like that one sock
that always disappears in the laundry—no one really misses it. Focus on what
truly matters, and let the rest vanish like socks in the dryer. When everything is a priority, it's harder to separate what matters from what doesn't.
Marcus
Aurelius said, "If you seek tranquility, do less." The Roman emperor
and philosopher didn't promote laziness. On the contrary, he advocated
for focusing on what's essential. Aurelius called it the double
satisfaction: "to do less, better."
In his book Essentialism,
Greg McKeown advocated a similar approach: get only the right things
done. Rather than the typical productivity approach (get more done in
less time), McKeown challenges the assumption that "we can have it all"
or that "we have to do everything." He invites us to focus on "the right
thing, in the right way, in the right time."
Effective
prioritizing is the realization that not all hours and not all work is
created equal. Effective prioritizing is the realization that not all
hours and not all work is created equal. It liberates your and your team
from a busyness mindset (reactive) so they can regain control
(proactive) of how they work.
Essentialism is the relentless
pursuit of less but better. It's not about getting more things done, but
getting the right things done. It is about making the wisest possible
investment of everyone's time and energy so teams can operate at their
highest point of contribution.
Effective prioritization is a
zero-sum game. If a new task becomes a priority for your team, something
else must become less important. You can't prioritize without
deprioritizing.
One company helps their employee deprioritize by
asking second-order questions – to inquire about the importance of the
task, not just what's needed:
• How important is this?
• When is it due?
• What would you like me to deprioritize?
# 3 Prioritize how you prioritize using 'even over' statements
Effective
prioritization requires establishing what's the criteria before
conflicts arise. Often companies wait until it's too late. They discuss
what's most important once they're dealing with conflicting priorities.
Crafting
'even over' statements will help you define those criteria ahead of the
game. It will make it easier for your team to determine what to say
"yes" to.
For example, Amazon prioritizes:
- Long-term value creation even over short-term results
- Speed even over perfection
- High performance even over harmony
Even
over statements help you define the trade-off your team is willing to
make when choosing between two good things. You can't be both
"customer-centric" and "people-first." Both are important and good
things. However, when push comes to shove, which will really come first?
Even
over statements anticipate potential conflicts, clarifying which way to
go. They force the team to choose one good thing even over a not When
Netflix prioritizes "performance even over effort," it doesn't mean that
the streaming giant doesn't care about the employees giving all they've
got. It means that Netflix cares more about the end result than the
effort itself.
When it comes to choosing between two good things, what's your real priority?
# 4 Evaluate priorities considering both the impact and effort required.
Before you commit, ask: Will this task change the world, or is it just another spreadsheet? If it takes hours and no one notices, maybe it belongs in the “nice to have” pile—right next to your collection of unused gym memberships.
Use
the powerful Eisenhower Matrix to determine the effort and impact of
each task or project. Get rid of Not urgent/Not important activities.
Urgent/Important things need immediate action. However, the
Important/Not urgent are usually the ones that will help you achieve
your long-term goals – this quadrant is the "sweet spot, according to
author Steven Covey. To put the matrix into practice start time blocking
your important/not urgent activities.
Time blocking is a time
management method that asks you to divide your day into blocks of time.
Each block is dedicated to accomplishing a specific activity and only
those specific activities. Instead of keeping an open-ended to-do list
of things you’ll get to as you’re able, you’ll start each day with a
concrete schedule that lays out what you’ll work on and when.
The
key to this method is prioritizing your task list in advance — a
dedicated weekly review is a must. Take stock of what’s coming up for
the week ahead and make a rough sketch of your time blocks for each day.
At the end of every workday, review any tasks you didn’t finish — as
well as any new tasks that have come in — and adjust your time blocks
for the rest of the week accordingly.
"A 40 hour time-blocked
work week, I estimate, produces the same amount of output as a 60+ hour
work week pursued without structure." — Cal Newport, Author of Deep Work
# 5 Make it a daily practice of asking yourself and your team the 'strategic question.'
The strategic question: If You’re Saying Yes to this, What Must You Say No To? is more complex that it sounds, which accounts for its potential. To begin with, you’re asking people to be clear and committed to their Yes. Too often, we kinda sorta half-heartedly agree to something, or more likely, there’s a complete misunderstanding in the room as to what’s been agreed to. So, to ask, “Let’s be clear: What exactly are you saying Yes to?” brings the commitment out of the shadows. If you ask, “What could being fully committed to this idea look like?” it bring things into sharper, bolder focus.
But a Yes is nothing without the No that gives it boundaries and form. If you say yes to this meeting, you’re saying No to something else that’s happening at the same time at the meeting. Understanding this kind of No helps you understand the implication of the decision.
So,
when someone asks you to do something, try to pause and yourself: If I
say “yes” to this, what will I be saying ‘no’ to doing? Once you answer
that question, you're in a better position to evaluate whether you
should say “yes” or “no” or “yes, but with these conditions.
Your
team and company culture is defined, but what you say ‘yes’ and ‘no’
to. Prioritization requires making sacrifices, especially when you have
to choose between two good things.
Final reminder: prioritization is not about doing everything with heroic intensity—it’s about choosing the few things that actually deserve your cape. Make time for effective prioritization, and let the less-important tasks wait patiently in the lobby. This is where the to-do list gets politely escorted out by strategy.
To your greater productivity and well-being,
Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant SMART DEVELOPMENT
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