Stop the endless to-do list: create a prioritisation framework

How do you pick what you work on?

Did you consciously pick any of the things on your to-do list? Or give any thought to how it was picked for you?

You know that I love a good meeting agenda and that I think you should decline meetings that don’t have them or are unnecessary for you. But before you get to the point where you’re declining meetings – you have to know what should be on your to-do list and where you should be spending your time.

So… how do you do that? If you don’t have a clear answer to this question, keep reading.

It’s easy to say that you should be working on the things that align to your goals. But is that really the best way to think about it? In my time at Amazon, I frequently had a few really big goals – but achieving each goal required completing dozens of distinct activities over the year. Moreover, just knowing that something aligns to a goal never really helped me to stack rank the twenty-odd items I could be working on at any moment. As the adage says – if everything is important then nothing is important.

If you’re in that boat too, how do you fix it?

You have to know what you’re optimizing for. Or said differently, you have to have a prioritization framework. This is paramount to picking the right places to spend your time and applies to everything on your to-do list because it allows you to know what should ‘win’ when there’s a conflict between different tasks.

Chances are, if you’re reading this post, you don’t have a framework and you’ll likely need to do some validation with your manager to help you sort this out. Before you walk into that meeting, let’s get our ducks in a row.

First, let’s establish what you know and what you think you know:

• How far does your prioritization framework go? Do you know what the top line priorities are for the year; i.e., your goals, but it gets a bit fuzzy on a) how those big goals break down into smaller pieces? or b) how to prioritize projects in the short term when deliverables for two goals are eating all your time?

• Action: Make a list of your priorities as you understand them and the gaps or questions that you have about where in the stack-rank different projects should be prioritized.

Second, based on that list of priorities, what does that mean you should be working on and why?

• Based on that list of priorities, what projects would you work on first? What is the expected impact of each project?

• Be clear – does the project align to a goal? Are you the only one who can own and deliver it? Are you a blocker for another team? Is it required to keep the lights on (regular run of business stuff)? Is it a scaling mechanism? Is it an input to a future deliverable? Is it an ask from another team?

• Action: Make a list of stack-ranked projects and a brief reason for why each are needed.

Lastly, what else is hitting your to-do list? What’s intruding on your best-laid-plans?

• Are you getting email requests from other teams? Are you being added to a bunch of things that could be interesting but are currently just a time suck?

• Action: Add these to your list. Be sure to have the details straight – Where are these coming from? What is the nature of the requests?

Now you have a consolidated view of all the tasks in your world. It’s important to have both your prioritization framework as you understand it and a list of your projects for your discussion with your manager – think of it as a litmus test. You want to be sure that you can use your prioritization framework to pick the right things for you to focus on, so reviewing your project list this way allows you and your manager to see the impact real time. It’s also important to be transparent about where you’re being pulled in different directions – your manager can’t help you prioritize what they don’t know about.

Now you’re ready for your meeting. Remember the goal is for you to get clear on your prioritization framework so you have a mechanism for determining where you spend your time.