Prioritization Tips: 8 Ways To Hack Your To-Do List
Master Your To-Do List: Focus on the most impactful activities on your plate and direct your efforts towards the most valuable outcomes—you can do this by organizing and ranking the items on your list.
Start With The Meatiest Task: Free up time and space in your brain by "eating the frog"—knocking off the biggest and toughest task on your list right at the beginning of the day.
Try Slow Productivity: Rushing and constantly switching between tasks can actually cause work to take longer, due to errors, rework, and the time it takes your brain to catch up between switches.
As a project manager, you’re no stranger to tackling your massive to-do list (on top of managing your team’s to-do lists). It can be hard to decide where to start when you’re getting pulled in a million different directions. Here are some of my best tips and tricks to help you think more strategically and get sh*t done.
1. Make A Full List
Why It Works: You know the expression that you can’t see the forest for the trees? Starting with a full list lets you see the forest and the trees so you can decide what is actually the most important thing to tackle and what can wait until later.
If you’re working on several different projects or reporting to multiple stakeholders, having a full list can help you prioritize and decide where to start. This isn’t about making everyone happy; it's about making the best decisions about how to use your limited resources (i.e. your time and energy).
How To Get Started: Make a list of everything on your plate, and don’t worry about putting it in priority order until after you’ve done your brain dump.
Once you have a complete list, then you can start to place them in order from most important to least important. If you find items you can either quickly knock out or delegate, do it right away—that’s just a bonus.
2. Eat The Frog
Why It Works: Eating the frog means tackling the most difficult or dreadful tasks on your list first. By starting with the gnarliest item on your list, you free up brain space that may be otherwise distracted by this looming task. You also build momentum that can help you pick off other items on the list (after you’ve eaten the frog), especially when the list is long.
How To Get Started: Take your list (see hack number one) and pick the most important task. Break that task down into smaller, more manageable steps, and check them off one by one until you’ve completed the main task. Breaking it down into smaller steps makes it less mentally overwhelming and easier to manage.
3. If Everything Is Urgent, Nothing Is Urgent
Why It Works: Having project team members, clients, and stakeholders all coming to you with urgent tasks, questions, or needs, can be overwhelming and noisy. Think about your highest priority—if everything is important, you might freeze or focus on the wrong things.
How To Get Started: Teach the team your definition of urgency. For example, if someone is waiting on you for information or feedback and it’s blocking them from getting their work done in a way that could jeopardize the timeline, then yeah, that is urgent.
Explain to whoever is making the request how you’re determining whether something is urgent and ensure that you are aligned. This way, you won’t second-guess yourself or feel bad if a detail comes out later that makes you feel as though you misunderstood the urgency.
For example, I was managing a custom software build for a client. My lead engineer was trying to wrap up an enhancement so that the client’s team could test it. Meanwhile, the client was frustrated because there was another task in the backlog to fix something minor that was bothering them when they used the software.
However, the engineer assumed that by completing the enhancement for testing first, he was helping the client by giving them more time to test before the launch. We addressed the situation by validating priorities with the client at future check-in meetings.
4. Push Back On Deadlines When Possible
Why It Works: Extra breathing room can help you be more efficient and effective, and reduce the overwhelm that can come with competing priorities.
How To Get Started: Look at your list of priorities for opportunities to empower yourself to move things around. If you can’t, chat with your team members or stakeholders about what can be adjusted. Often, things aren’t as urgent as we believe them to be. Pushing back and getting some outside perspective can be helpful.
If you can’t push items on your list back, see where else you can gain some time back. Do you need to be in every meeting? Even an extra half hour or hour in your day to focus on your to-do list can be extremely helpful. It gives you more focus time, and eliminates another instance in which you need to context switch (a notorious productivity killer).
5. Slow Down To Speed Up
Why It Works: When you’re rushing through tasks and constantly context switching, you’re more likely to forget critical details or make mistakes, which leads to rework. Slow down to get through your list faster—you won’t need to spend as much time fixing mistakes, or worse, adjusting project timelines because you forgot to complete a task, get approval, or assign a resource.
How To Get Started: Time block your calendar and assign specific amounts of time for each task, leaving plenty of time to complete it. For example, you might block an hour to review your emails in the morning to ensure you have enough time for thoughtful responses before your first meeting.
6. Use Project Management Tools For Schedules And Reminders
Why It Works: As you move priorities around, don’t lose sight of important tasks. Keep them in your project management software or task management system to free up brain space (or space in your notes if you’re a pen-and-paper person). Set due dates weeks or months ahead if necessary—future you will appreciate the timely reminders.
How To Get Started: By keeping track of your own tasks in the same tool where you manage projects, you won’t have to look in multiple places for multiple things you need to do your job, which reduces cognitive load. Add links to resources or documents you will need as you’re managing your tasks to make your tool a one-stop shop to get things done.
7. Gather Data To Determine Your Capacity
Why It Works: You might be feeling constantly overwhelmed or overloaded, but are you still being productive? Keep track of your to-dos over the course of a few weeks or even a few months. How many tasks are you completing each day, and how many are being added? If you’re being assigned work faster than you can complete it and you feel like you’re slipping further and further behind, gather some data to prove it.
This data can help you make the case for additional support in the form of a coordinator or another project manager. If this doesn’t seem necessary, it might be time to look for some coaching on managing your time better or to test out some new time management techniques.
How To Get Started: Color-code your to-do list for the day in a specific color (or use your project management software’s functionality to highlight your initial tasks). If you need to add to your list, use another color of ink or tag the tasks accordingly. You can also add the time each task took you as you move through your day. Remember to note any time away from work (like meal periods or breaks).
At the end of each day, note how much of your to-do list you completed and how many more hours you would have needed to complete the full list. You might need several additional hours, but if tasks can wait, this might not be enough to argue that you’re overloaded.
Repeat this exercise to see how much of a gap exists between what you’re getting done each day and what you need to get done. There may be ebbs and flows (not every day has the same work volume). You might also want to do this exercise during both your busy season (if you have one) and a lighter volume period to see the difference.
If your business has big swings between busy and dormant times, chat with your leadership team about bringing in temporary help for busy times in lieu of hiring another full-time team member. If you’re a contractor, this exercise can help you determine how many hours or projects you can handle at a time.
8. Try Body Doubling
Why It Works: If you’re feeling distracted and need help focusing, working silently with a partner or small group can help. While this technique, known as body doubling, is often prescribed for people with ADHD, you can benefit even if you don’t have this diagnosis.
As a project manager, you might find yourself with a list of tedious and less-than-glamorous tasks that you’re not super ecstatic about tackling. Someone’s gotta do it, and it's okay to need a little external motivation.
How To Get Started: Grab a colleague or set up a Zoom room. Time box your work session, limiting it to an hour or so at a time. Set your intention for the session. For example, this might be auditing time sheets, creating a new project timeline, or updating your retro templates.
Get to work and allow your partner to do the same. When your time is up, share with your partner what you did (or didn’t) get done. Repeat as necessary to get all of your tasks completed.
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