A Prioritization Tool

Explore

Gallery

A Prioritization Tool

To help you get the most out of your time

Katrina Stevenson

A Bit of Background

For over ten years, I’ve been obsessed with lists. I make lists for everything from books to work. But let’s face it: these lists can get unruly and balancing the priorities of a busy life is, well, hard. The busier you are, the less time you have to make good decisions. This is where a prioritization tool can help.

A few years ago I implemented a queue for a customer support team that automatically prioritized tickets based on a set of business criteria. Since then, I have used the same methodology with other teams and applied it to my own to-do lists. The result is a clear set of priorities backed by business-driven motivations.

I’ve made a template to enable a diverse set of people to apply this prioritization tool. Founders (typically) take on too much without knowing how or when to delegate; Managers have the challenge of keeping priorities across team members straight; And Individual Contributors need to justify doing one urgent task before another.

No matter what, everyone wants to know what to work on next without spending more time on the decision than the actual task.

Getting Started

⁠

Copy this doc

⁠

to make it your own,

⁠

My Top Priorities⁠

is currently populated with sample tasks. Delete the rows to start fresh!

⁠

Add Tasks

⁠

to your list, ensuring you complete all the fields so prioritization can be automatically calculated,

Check out

My Top Priorities⁠

and start from the top!

As you complete tasks, mark them as done and enter the actual impact/effort in

Retro⁠

for future reference.

Details about the calculations and customizations are

Under the Hood⁠

Future Work

There are a variety of opportunities to further strengthen this tool, including:

Expand to cover whether a task can be delegated

Support team prioritization

Integrate with other ticketing and task systems

Gallery

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.