Rapid prioritization tool

The need for help in prioritization and trying to decide between too many things came up a couple of times yesterday in the call. I lay awake last night thinking about how to summarize what I’ve learned into an actionable tool. And the following Venn diagram is what I’ve come up with as a high-level shortcut that can help you compare projects quickly.

There’s always too much to do. The trick to getting more things crammed into your schedule (and then done) seems to be about finding good balance to maintain levels of energy across all of their types: mental, emotional, financial, physical, social, time, inspiration, awakeness etc. Imagine sets of limited resources that are used when we push at something. Some can be regenerated, some are material and can only be exchanged. Keeping the flow of these balanced allows us to plan to have enough when we need it, and start to optimize.

The major factors to consider when prioritizing projects:
- time costs; start up and maintenance
- deadlines; urgency
- sequences; which are necessary before others
- risks & consequences
- balance; what does it deplete / restore
- importance / leverage
- difficulty; relative skill level needed, tangible external challenges, effort
- benefits; return on investment, soon vs later

So, there’s a lot of things to consider and it’s hard to make sure everything is balanced. Certain personality types cannot live with as much uncertainty, and you could make a spreadsheet where you estimate ranks for each of the relevant categories (I do this with clients often). And, while that is useful for subjectively comparing the projects, it still comes down to an emotional choice. That level of detail is useful for when you really want to get clear, but it’s not fast. The Venn diagram is distilling all of that crunch into something quick and smooth.
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Values - things, principles and ideals that are important to you
Goals - what you want to achieve
Wants / Needs - internal / external (generally)
Core - what is this all about really? the bullseye, the optimal
Enjoying the process - this collapses a lot of stuff together: skill, challenge, relevance, mood, energies, etc.

Looking at the diagram, imagine your projects on sticky notes or pins, where do they fall? You can probably think of projects (or hobbies!) that fall in all of the various combinations. Ideally, you want to be prioritizing projects that are in the core. But remember, if everything is important, nothing is important. It’s also possible to use this tool by thinking in specific contexts of a certain category of goal, or a smaller set of values.

Give it a try, let me know if it’s a helpful framework for deliberating on your priorities.

1/30/2020