Put yourself in this scenario.
It is Tuesday morning at 8:00 a.m., you just clocked in for the day and have a hot cup of coffee in hand. You sit down at your desk, and you realize a storm is brewing. There is a mountain of work to do.
Your email inbox is overflowing with messages, your phone is already blowing up with texts and calls, your calendar is overbooked, and there is a line at your door of customers, coworkers, and comanagers who need to talk to you.
What are you going to do next? How do you make that decision? You have a lot to do, and this is not a new scenario. You are a busy person and frequently find yourself flooded with more stuff than anyone could manage at one time, let alone a single day, week, or month.
The work just never ends. Your mind becomes clogged with questions that are devoid of clear answers.
Fortunately, you do have many options—some are better than others, but something has to be done to address these repeated chaotic conditions.
This list is not comprehensive. There are other options, but ultimately you will have to decide how to filter what gets done, and in what order.
Not everything will be addressed. Many things will never be accomplished—ever. You will have to choose for yourself. Every scenario is different, and there is no one best answer for all situations, or especially for your situation right now.
Ultimately, the best answer lies in developing the skill of being able to quickly prioritize the vital few tasks while postponing absolutely everything else. As time progresses, you will develop a highly useful toolbox of prioritization strategies.
In this chapter, we will discuss five stages of prioritization for your ongoing projects, as well as a variety of strategies to filter your ideas and requests for your time, so you know how to handle the true urgency and importance of the work landing on your desk.
I tend to get overly ambitious.
I take on projects when any new idea pops into my head, or I read about a fun strategy that appears vitally important for my business, or I attend a conference and take pages and pages of notes with more stuff to do than I will ever have time for.
For years, I would not write down the new ideas in any organized system. I would just begin tackling the new projects immediately, simply adding them to my ever‐expanding workload.
At some point, I would realize the number of projects I committed to was growing too fast. I would pause and write all of them down to craft a comprehensive list of everything I was committed to accomplishing.
These lists became my go‐to for project management.
Initially, they were incredibly helpful because I had visual clarity over the various promises I had made to myself and others.
However, it became apparent over time that simply acknowledging I was too busy to ever get everything done was not enough.
You cannot simply say, “Here are the 124 goals I have for the next ninety days.”
That is not progress—it is insanity—and it is undeniably overwhelming and counterproductive.
The breakthrough came when I began to distinctly classify my projects. I created clear categories for them and found systematic approaches to ignore everything that was not vitally important in my current season.
These classifications have proven their worth time and time again, especially during the busiest of seasons. When you have committed to too much, your next action is clear and written down right in front of you.
When you have cleared enough free space that you feel confident you can take on more work, your next action is clear and written down right in front of you.
Clarity to this degree is beautiful and rare.
Knowing what matters most, seeing those items written down in a clear and compelling manner, and then making significant and tangible progress on those priorities is the epitome of being a productivity rock star.
If you truly want more freedom, more free time, or more margin in your life to pursue what matters most, organizing your life and business with well‐designed systems is not just imperative—it is as close to a mandate as you will ever hear from me.
Here is a description of the Five Stages of Project Prioritization.
Stage Zero provides no priority at all. These are your future projects that will get none of your attention in this season.
Zero.
These are your future ideas, bucket list fantasies, anything you cannot or should not do now. Ninety‐five percent of your ideas and projects will be in this category.
In fact, you may have to eventually create subcategories for these ideas if you find yourself with dozens or hundreds of potential pursuits.
Projects in this stage will only progress to future stages when they have proven themselves to be significant and truly worthy of your time. The bar is high and very few projects will ever make it out of Stage Zero.
Stage One consists of your lowest priority projects, those that are important but not urgent.
Projects in this stage will likely consist of goals that you can or have to do very slowly over time. Think of these as requiring minimum payments, like a long‐term loan that you will eventually pay off—but not anytime soon.
This stage could include goals that require small, recurring investments over time, but likely nothing significant all at once. This could include long‐term goals around your health, financial investments, networking, or anything that you know needs to be addressed in bite‐sized pieces.
Stage Two consists of your middle‐of‐the‐road projects, those you need to monitor closely but which may not require you to devote any significant time in the next couple of weeks.
Medium priority projects consist of ones that have looming deadlines and could surprise you if you find yourself procrastinating on them.
These are the most dangerous because we often find ourselves shocked that we forget to do anything about these projects until the very last minute.
It is wise to schedule recurring reminders to work on these projects every one to two weeks to avoid any stressful moments leading up to the cut‐off time.
Stage Three projects are your vital few, the same few (or just one) that you identified in the last chapter.
These projects will consist of your current most important work. This is the number one focus in your life at this moment, your one singular objective.
I highly encourage you to leave only enough space for a single project in this category at any one time. The more you attempt to prioritize as urgent and important, the less likely either of those qualifiers is true.
The final stage, Stage Four, is your last resort.
If any project lands in this category, you will know it because it will consume 100 percent of your attention. These are emergencies: world‐ending, heart‐stopping, Armageddon‐esque problems.
Projects that qualify as worthy of Stage Four could include heart attacks, bankruptcies, house fires, your website crashing in the middle of a product launch, or any other situation that stops everything else in its tracks.
These could also include wonderful opportunities, like the birth of a child, your wedding day, or skydiving for the first time (believe me, nothing else matters when you are free‐falling at 140 miles per hour straight toward the earth).
On a practical level, I use Evernote (a digital notebook) to organize, monitor, and update my projects. Feel free to use any note‐taking system that you are already comfortable with and are actively using.
The only requirement is that you use the system you claim to use. That may sound obvious, but I know way too many people who “use” Evernote, but have not updated it for years.
Schedule time on your calendar at least once a week to thoroughly review the status of your projects. It will not take long after your system has been set up.
If you are keeping a short leash on the number of projects you pursue at any one time, this process will be quick, simple, and quite helpful.
Sometimes your greatest enemy to productivity is the onslaught of too many great ideas to consider and opportunities to pursue.
Many people that I meet think about productivity in one specific manner. They envision using strategies to accomplish more tasks on a to‐do list, which equates to just being busier with more work they do not want to do (think: my boss just assigned me more tasks to complete, and now I have to figure out how to get it all done).
However, when I think about productivity, I picture something completely different, accomplishing amazing projects—many amazing projects of my choosing in both my work and personal life.
In my work as a speaker, author, and podcaster, generating new ideas to share is part of my job description. However, due to my passion for personal development, I love getting new ideas that will enhance my work and life in any way.
I am sure you can relate.
Think back to the last passion project you took on (e.g., running a marathon, designing your new home, learning a new language, building a new business).
When the project began, and you started to see the potential for it to go well, you likely went through a period where your excitement took over.
You started to picture all of the many ways you could tackle the goal: the supplies you would need, the people you would meet, the other opportunities you would generate because of this new project.
Excitement at that level is often what I love most about my life. Getting a new idea is as great a high as anything I have experienced because it puts me in a euphoric state of positive hope, potential, and possibility.
When you stay in that state long enough, you begin to get many new ideas—so many in fact, that you end up with too many.
Filtering your many ideas down to the vital few you will have time to pursue is challenging. We addressed this issue in part in the last chapter, as well as with the Five Stages of Project Prioritization, but take a few minutes to consider how else you could narrow your choices.
How else could you create your short list of high‐priority projects that would change your life forever?
Using the results from your Self‐Evaluation in chapter 2, consider the big picture of your life. How do you want to live on a daily basis, and what goals would enable that vision? What does your lifestyle look like in an ideal sense, and what would it take to bring that to reality?
Is your new project idea a game‐changing goal that must be pursued to the exclusion of everything else? How many of your ideas fall into this bucket? How many of your goals, if accomplished successfully, would change your entire life forever?
Is your new idea necessary or required to move another goal forward? What consequences, if any, would you experience if this goal was never accomplished?
Will your new idea directly or indirectly generate significant results? Sometimes an idea is worth pursuing simply because it will improve your life so much that you cannot imagine backing down now. Does your new idea rise to the occasion?
Could your new idea be completed so quickly, easily, or with such minimal effort that you may as well just do it? There are many small goals that are worthy of your time if they can be wrapped up swiftly. Are you better off just getting it done so you can move on?
For years I used the phase, “do what is obvious, do what is right,” when I found myself stuck at a fork in the road. Is your new goal obviously the right decision? Is your new idea so clear that you would regret not doing it?
Other people often know us better than we know ourselves. Have you asked anyone else about your new idea? Who could you speak with that would provide wisdom and clarity to your situation?
On the vision board in my office I have a large piece of paper with this phrase in bold marker, “Is it a 9 or 10? No? Walk away.” We often consider ideas that are good, but not great. If your new goal would not qualify as a nine or ten, is it worth your time? Would it be considered high‐end, professional, or superior in quality?
Is your new idea a BIG project and would it WOW someone? When I first fell in love with distance running, I fell in love with the idea of impressing myself, which I used to challenge my limiting beliefs about how far and fast I could run. Does your new idea impress you? Is it a WOW project? Does it exceed your bar of excellence?
Listing pros and cons of a complex project may sound simple, but clarity does not lie. Knowing and writing down exactly why a new idea is great, and why it is not, will make the decision infinitely easier.
Will your goal eliminate the need to pursue other goals in the future? Sometimes a goal can have a tremendous impact across many areas, making other goals nearly unnecessary. Will your goal pack a punch?
Meditation, prayer, or contemplation are all useful strategies for letting an idea sit for a minute so you can make an educated decision. Rushing a new idea into existence may be the wrong strategy. Could your goal be implemented more intelligently if you gave it time to mature?
The best solution to decide whether or not to pursue a new idea is not to wait at all. Try it and see what happens. Clarity is often best achieved in hindsight, and many ideas only make sense after implementation. Could the best strategy be to just jump in feet first?
Knowing what matters most at any point in time is subjective, but the power is in your hands. When you develop a large toolbox of productivity strategies, you provide yourself the means to tackle anything that comes your way.
By using the Five Stages of Project Prioritization, you can determine the importance of each of your current and future goals with amazing precision. Ninety‐five percent of your goals will be in Stage Zero, meaning they will be classified as completely deprioritized future goals.
Some projects are clearly important whereas others may not be as obvious. When you ask the right questions, you can quickly determine which goals are worth your time, and which can wait for later.
Using the Five Stages of Project Prioritization, determine the importance of each of your major projects and goals. Most goals can wait until later, and they will have to, in order to make room for what matters most.
On the vision board in my office, I have a list of filters to help clarify what to do next. Create your short list of the best filters that work for you and post them in a visible location where you work.
Some tasks are best tackled at the last minute, and you may be the kind of person who thrives under pressure. If so, let the act of procrastinating work in your favor to ensure you get the work done that truly is urgent and important.