You’re in danger of spinning your wheels aimlessly by having too many priorities. Focus on the priorities that truly impact your business and are aligned with your strategy.
I’ve yet to meet a client that didn’t have FAR too many priorities for what could be achieved successfully. Instead of accepting additional priorities, think about which priorities you should be focused on.
Consider the following factors:
- Alignment with strategy: Oddly, I find it is easy to get caught up in priorities that do not align with your strategy. Check on this upfront.
- Urgency: Is it time sensitive? For example, if your dog will run into traffic in the street, it is an urgent issue and cannot wait.
- Benefit/cost: If the item isn’t addressed, what will happen? Will you lose $5 million dollars? Will you gain a key customer? Or even though it might be time sensitive, the impact isn’t significant.
- Is it getting better or worse? What would happen if you ignored the topic? Will it get better on its own? Worse?
You’re in danger of spinning your wheels aimlessly by having too many priorities. Focus on the priorities that truly impact your business and are aligned with your strategy.