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Creating your Short List: How & What to Prioritize
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Hello! I'm inspired and energized from an incredible week with the Venture Mentoring Team mentoring over 100 founder teams for the eMerge Americas startup accelerator. I listened to brilliant women like Kathryn Finney and Reshma Saujani talk about the importance of showing up big as women and not taking ‘no’ when it comes to pursuing our vision, whether that’s a startup vision (here’s a link to Kathryn’s book “Build the Damn Thing”) or the vision of affordable child care and paid family leave (here’s a link to join Reshma’s organization Moms First). And I met amazing people from across the South Florida startup community — founders, operators, students, educators, investors and advisors. I'm still marveling at the brilliant & wonderful people I connected with. If you’re new here, welcome! You can expect actionable strategies to get out of survival mode & live your life with intention, so that instead of reacting, you’re consciously choosing — spending your most valuable resources: time, energy and attention on commitments that reflect your priorities, ignite your energy & honor your values. You picked a great week to join. We’re diving deep into prioritization. I recommend catching up on last week’s issue, which introduces the framework and covers the first two steps. There are so many things we learn in school and basically never use again. And two critical skill sets that we typically aren’t taught yet we desperately need to learn: “Soft skills” like effective communication & collaboration Executive functioning skills like organization, time management & prioritization Not developing these skills early is partly why so many of us struggle to transform our endless to do lists into an actionable plan that delivers on our goals and a calendar that reflects our values. Knowing HOW, WHAT and WHEN to prioritize is a critical skill given the reality we face of constant time pressure, overlapping demands and ever-present opportunity costs. Last week we introduced the Priority Checkpoints framework to determine what makes your shortlist based on a sequence of prioritization criteria. If a commitment passes a checkpoint, the gate opens & you continue on. Nothing gets your time that doesn’t get through all the gates. We've already covered the first two checkpoints: Checkpoint One: Gut Instinct & Intuition Checkpoint Two: Vision & Values This week, we’ll explore the rest: Checkpoint Three: Capacity & Resources Checkpoint Four: Impact & ROI Checkpoint Five: Urgency & Importance Side Gate Six: Long Lead Time Checkpoint Three: Capacity and Resources Ask yourself: Is the project feasible and achievable based on personal capacity & currently-available resources? Why it matters: Battling structural constraints and over-committing is a fast track to burnout. Factoring capacity and resources in early leads to time allocation that is realistic & sustainable. What to do: Capacity Check 1. Assess your current workload and be realistic. Do you have the time that this initiative will take? “Realistic” requires you to think beyond the first step and consider the time that will be required for planning, execution & ongoing management. Even if you plan to delegate, factor in realistic expectations for oversight. 2. Consider the opportunity costs of adding this to your list. What do you need to give up in order to make this happen? Is that an acceptable sacrifice? 3. Do you have the resources to do this well, and if not, can you afford them? Is there an alternative path that is worth considering as an interim step, like pursuing a lean short-term version, outsourcing or delegating? Checkpoint Four: Impact and ROI Ask yourself: Will my time, energy and attention on this project generate a high return in terms of business growth or personal well-being? Why it matters: This checkpoint focuses your attention on activities that move the needle & contribute significantly to your business and/or yourself. What to do: High-level Impact Analysis 1. List out outcomes that could be achieved with this project. Make sure they are specific, measurable & desirable. Do these outcomes contribute meaningfully to an important personal or professional goal? Are there dependencies that would reduce or impede the impact of achieving this outcome? 🚩 Conversely, would one of these outcomes facilitate or unblock an important step toward achieving a larger goal? 🟢 2. Flag any outcomes that could be achieved by someone else as your proxy. If you’re replaceable, green light and delegate. 3. Consider any risks that could prevent these desired outcomes from materializing. If there are risks, does your personal involvement make them less likely? If not, de-risk the initiative before you get involved by delegating interim steps to someone else. This avoids you investing personal time in something that’s likely to go off the rails, whether you get involved or not. Checkpoint Five: Urgency and Importance You’ve checked the boxes for alignment, capacity and impact, Now it’s time to whip out the Eisenhower Matrix. This matrix categorizes priorities based on “urgency” & “importance”. Ask yourself: Is this task Urgent & Important? Activities deemed Urgent and Important, get the green light to advance. Why it matters: Your job is to steer the ship, avoid crises, build momentum and take care of your people (including yourself). What to do: Have a short list of criteria that count as “Urgent & Important” and when I say short, I mean short. If you are a founder, hear me: if it’s work-related and it’s not one of these items, it might be Urgent & Important but not for you. Let someone else do it:
It’s not enough to have a short list that only covers work. You need that same level of clarity around what matters most outside of work too. A blended list is ideal to make sure your personal side doesn’t get steamrolled when work gets extra-intense. Mine:
Having a blended list that honors both personal & professional values helps Future You honor your boundaries. Side Gate 6: Long Lead Time If a project doesn’t check the box for Urgent & Important, but does involve a long lead time, give it a second look. Ask yourself: Does this plant a seed that I want to be able to harvest in the near-ish future (2-4 Quarters out)? Why it matters: This tees Future You up for success by planting the seeds of slightly longer-term priorities that take time to sprout and cultivate. If you don’t plant them now, they won’t be ready to harvest when you need them. Like family vacation planning: book ahead if you want to lock down your top choice. Tyranny of the urgent leads to only one thing: more tyranny of the urgent. Zoom out to stay ahead. What to do: Project kickoff If the initiative is on the work-related, and especially if it involves a team, long-term project planning is key. Take the time to set a clear vision, align on milestones & expectations and delegate responsibility for the initial steps. With this approach, progress can be made in the background until the project does satisfy all checkpoints to be a top priority for you.
So what happens to a commitment that doesn’t make the cut? It stays on the back burner until a shortlisted project is complete. When bandwidth is available to take on a new initiative, it goes through the Checkpoint process again and maybe this time, it makes the cut. Want to take this to the next level? Use this Priority Checkpoint Tracker The tracker flags each activity as: Green: Pass Yellow: Need more info Red: Did not meet criteria It captures your notes on why a Checkpoint wasn’t met and what is needed to “get to green” so that instead of starting from scratch, Future You has a head start on the process. Let me know if it's helpful! Prioritization is an act of self-preservation. If you prioritize everything,
you prioritize nothing and
if you prioritize nothing,
you sacrifice everything.
The tyranny of the urgent and the ease of “yes” will take over if you let them, and then you’ll look up and wonder: Is this it? Where did the time go? These checkpoints help you decide what to show up for so that you’re able to show up for yourself. If you want to go deeper, I am always available. Reply to this email or DM me on LinkedIn. Forward this email to a friend who could use some help with prioritization and showing up for themselves (hint: that’s all friends 😉) See you next week! |
Time by Design
Are you juggling multiple non-negotiable roles (parent, founder, exec, caretaker, all the above)? Trying to "balance" and feel like you’re failing at everything? Ready to break the patterns that are keeping you stuck? Subscribe for head-led, heart-centered strategies to step out of survival mode and embrace a new Operating System for Intentional Living. Actionable strategies drop Sunday mornings. What to try. Why it Works. For When it Matters.
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