Surviving the Deluge: Tactics for Prioritization

Most founders feel overwhelmed by the ever growing list of tasks on their To Do list. Here are a few simple ways to focus your attention on what matters most. 

There’s not enough time in the day to get everything done, no matter how late you work. The list of things you have to do seems to grow exponentially, with infinite additions. It is a real challenge to identify what is most important to do first. Sometimes, no matter what you work on, there is a nagging feeling that you should be doing something else. You may even have a nagging feeling that you’re constantly letting everyone around you down because you just aren’t doing enough.

Founders often tell me some version of this story during our coaching sessions. I often tell them the story of when I was a young leader struggling with overwhelm. I asked one of my mentors how he deals with never being “done” and turns his work brain off at night. He said, “At the end of the day, I close my computer and step away from my desk and say, ‘That was a good day’s work.’” That simple statement has resonated with me and has given me permission to be finite.

Even so, over the years, I have assembled a few simple habits that help me mentally and emotionally manage my To Do list, which always seems to be a little too long. As someone with a bit of ADHD and a free spirit, highly defined systems don’t work well for me. My lists are a jumble of scribbles, arrows, and colors. The tangibility of writing things down on paper works better for me than digital documents and programs. Here are some specific tactics which help me and have resonated with the founders I coach.

Quarterly Goals

In his must read book, Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business, Gino Wickman calls these your Big Rocks. If you have to fit big rocks, pebbles, and sand into a jar, the only way to get them all in is to start with the big rocks. Start defining your quarterly goals for your business. Then, define your quarterly goals for yourself. These are the three or four things that are most important for you and your team to focus on to move the business forward. (Usually, these will be growth areas, not basic maintenance.) Most weeks and most days most of your time should be spent on these big rocks. These goals should be reviewed monthly and quarterly. 

Rolling To Do List

In his book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, David Allen lays out a very detailed system for managing tasks in every aspect of your life. I confess that the strict details he prescribes give me a sense of claustrophobia, but one concept was really helpful for me. He recommends separating out “some day” tasks from time bound or ASAP tasks. Sometimes, I keep two separate lists. Other times, I use one list to highlight or color code the more urgent tasks. But the simple awareness that I have a list of tasks I want to get to eventually but not today helps to ease my mind. Usually, when the list becomes longer than one page or sometimes two, I will start a new page, deleting the finished ones and culling the undone tasks which I may not care as much about anymore. 

Weekly Achievements & Priorities

I can’t remember where I learned this practice, but it has been really helpful for me. Near the beginning of the week, I get out my journal, and I think back on the week before. 

First, I make a list of what I accomplished in three categories: personal, family, and work. The personal category might include things like exercise, homework (O God, please let my advisors accept my latest dissertation submission!), or even naps. The family section could include a date with my wife, games with my kids, mowing the yard, or calling my mom. The work section might include signing a new client, completing a blog post, or a thousand other things. For me, this simple act of remembering is powerful because it reminds me that I am actually making progress and doing things that matter. This combats the feeling of being a hamster in a wheel. 

Next, I make a list of my priorities for the coming week, using the same categories. In the following week, when I am reviewing my achievements, I’ll usually flip back a few pages to see if I accomplished the priorities I had set for that week. This is a good form of self-accountability that helps keep me on track.

Daily Top Priorities

These days, I try to begin the day by jotting down 3-5 priority tasks on a Post-It Note. I usually scan my email inbox to check for any high priority items that may have come in overnight, but I try really hard not to get sucked into the email vortex yet. Often, I’ll review my calendar, my To Do list, and my weekly priorities. The point is to make it clear what I need to focus on between meetings or, on rare occasions, if I might even need to cancel a meeting. When the day before was full of meetings, I might have only crossed one item off my daily list, so I just carry those over and maybe add one or two. On rare and beautiful days, I cross everything off by midday, and I can go back to my floating list or inbox to reprioritize a new set of tasks. 

Write It Down

Another excellent insight from Getting Things Done is that our brains are geared to worry about things that feel unsafe. When our brains don’t believe that we have a secure way to track our responsibilities, then they keep worrying over them because that part of our brain wants to make sure we don’t forget this thing we need to do.

Years ago, when I was struggling to sleep at night, I learned this lesson in a different way. Instead of just trying to quiet my mind through meditation or waiting, if I get up and go to my To Do list and write down everything that I need to do over the next days or weeks, then my brain can relax and I can go to sleep.  

The same lesson can be applied to help us relax throughout the day or to focus on deep work. If I think of something that I need to do, I just write it down as a line on my To Do list. That frees up my brain to focus on other things because I’m confident that I won’t lose it. (David Allen suggests also writing down the next step for that item. I tried that for a while, but it doesn’t seem necessary for me.) 

Summary

There’s nothing magic about any of these. They work for me, and they might be helpful for you. But, just like I took some things from Traction and Getting Things Done but not others, you’ll need to figure out what works for you. The key thing is to have a system to make order out of the chaos of tasks that swirl around a founder. You’ve got to have a system of prioritization and task management, or this job will eat you alive.