3 Strategies To Take Back Control of Your To-Do List (For Everyone)
Three ways I practice ruthless prioritization - from business planning, to product management to my dreaded daily to do list.
Last week in my group coaching program, prioritization was…ruining everyone’s lives. Something was in the air again. So we talked it through.
We spoke about how to problem solve and I shared some of the best tricks I use - from when I was a product manager myself to being a soloprenuer now.
And I quickly realized the tricks flex well beyond product management.
Truthfully, ruthless prioritization is something I need now more than ever now that I’m my own boss.
The next time you’re feeling absolutely overwhelmed…try these three things.
1. Start with the dreaded thing.
Yep. Start with the scariest, most dreaded thing on your list.
I adopted this from my engineering team, when engineers start with a spike. Spiking involves conducting research, investigating potential solutions and quelling uncertainty before actually building anything.
I liken this to starting with the dreaded thing, the unknown. Because unknowns are scary right?
If you start with the dreaded, the most uncertain, fuzziest thing, the rest of your to do list doesn’t feel THAT scary.
The key to making sure the dreaded thing is contained is to… ↩️
2. Time box your exploration.
Prevent yourself from going down rabbit holes by time boxing the dreaded thing. Set aside a certain amount of time to spend on the dreaded thing before moving onto the next item on your list.
Sometimes, I’ll set a literal timer to make sure that I hold myself to this rule. Because a one hour endeavor can easily become a three hour endeavor.
And when you reach that one hour mark, take a step back and….↩️
3. Go smaller.
After toiling over something for awhile, your mind can go numb. And it’s likely you’re able to now break it down into smaller chunks of work. It’s the agile mindset, to take incremental steps to making something more tangible and deliverable.
Take the time I was needing to find a payment provider and onboard all my clients onto new software.
Huge, gross, not fun, hate this.
After spending an hour in research hell (I’m a delivery PM at heart), I broke it down into sizable chunks.
Step 1: Create an overview of my options in a spreadsheet. ✅
Step 2: Gather research from my peers to learn what’s worked best for them. ✅
Step 3: Onboard myself onto the new platform (Paperbell won). ✅
Step 4: Onboard my new clients onto the platform. ✅
Step 5: Onboard my legacy clients onto the platform. ✅
Going smaller and creating incremental steps made this dreaded task so much more manageable.
Prioritization doesn’t have to be the death of you. I promise. 💀