Hot Take: If you had a process for prioritization that included even a single step, your decisions would be 50% better. BOOM! But even 50% better can still be yesterday’s mediocre.
Truthfully, the only data I have for this is my own, meandering experience. I will tell you a quick story and then I will give you the easiest process for prioritization you will ever receive.
Nerf or Nuthin
If you follow my writing you know I am a huge fan of side hustles. For a while now I have been reselling items on eBay and the business requires a lot of packing and shipping. If you sell enough items in a short amount of time, you have all the makings of an afternoon full of packing and shipping.
One particular afternoon I had around five orders that had “sold.” I use “sold” loosely because on eBay you can win a bid or even “Buy It Now” without actually paying for the item yet. One of the items that had been “sold” but not paid for was a wicked awesome “Nerf Zombie Brainsaw.” It’s one of those items that would help someone prepare for the impending zombie apocalypse but was a challenge to ship. It was oddly shaped, long, and as such it had consumed my intrigue. There’s a bit of time, fun, and creativity involved in making custom shipping boxes, so I immediately started packing the brainsaw.
It did not disappoint. There was planning, plotting, and persistence, all of which culminated in a beautifully packed item. There was only one problem. It was now 4:40 in the afternoon, the post office closed at 4:30, and this one item was the only thing I’d packed. What’s worse was, you guessed it, the buyer had not even paid for the item yet. On the floor beside me was four other items that were paid for and were now going to ship a day late. My priorities needed adjusting.
A Model For Prioritization
Most of you are probably thinking, “That’s a rookie mistake Tristan. Obviously you should have prioritized the ones that had payment completed.” You’re absolutely right and hindsight is “20/20.” However, in the real world I watch veterans make this same mistake over and over. Every day I see people choose to do all kind of tasks that are either intriguing or convenient, yet delay them from completing what’s most critical. If only they had a way of quickly deciding what the one single most important thing was that would also allow them to sequence everything else…
Step 1: Start with what you do now
The path to generating a simple prioritization model is to just start with what you already do now. (Some of you may notice this as Kanban Principle 1) Getting started was as simple as understanding what I was already doing. My early process was to basically just pack and ship whatever was being bought, which worked until the brainsaw episode. One prioritization step was good, but I needed more.
Useful Question: “How am I currently prioritizing what gets done?”
Step 2: Create A “Critical Question” Set
The accidental outcome from the brainsaw event was that I looked at my process and created a lean set of questions to ensure I was prioritizing properly when there were multiple items in my list. The questions looked like this:
Priority Question 1: “Has the item been bought?”
Priority Question 2: “Has the item been paid for?”
Priority Question 3: “When is the package required to be shipped?”
Priority Question 4: “Do I have the correct packing material already, or will it require custom?”
It’s important to note that these questions should probably nest or cascade. In other words, there may be times when I have multiple items to which the answer to each question could be yes. If I get to “Question 4” and I have one item that has been bought and paid for, has the soonest shipping requirement, and would fit in a box I already have then I get that one done first. Essentially, ties go to the thing that I can finish the quickest. I could just as easily say “ties go to the item with the highest value,” but you get the picture.
Step 3: Commit to Incrementally Improve the Process
“But Tristan, how many questions are there?” Kanban Principle #2 is super helpful here. You don’t have to think of every possible question. You don’t even have to have the best questions. Just adapt your situation based on what you learned and keep rolling. Don’t use a mistake like late shipping as an excuse to say, “See, I need to think of every possible scenario.” You don’t. And you won’t. I like to stick to no more than the top 5. Anything more has always seemed excessive for me.
THATS IT!
There you have it. Three easy steps to start your prioritization journey. Just remember, the word priority was singular for almost 500 years. It wasn’t until the late 1900’s that humans created “priorities.” The path to a leaner process starts with having the understanding of what’s most important. Everything else should wait. You’ll get more done that way.
Until next time,
Keep on learning. Keep on growing.