Prioritization: The Key to Achieving More Without Doing More
Prioritizing Creates Time to Do What You Love - What’s First?
It always feels like there’s never enough time in the day to do it all. But what if there was? Prioritizing can mean the difference between getting that proposal in on time (which could mean big bucks for your company) or taking your kid to their first day of school. But what if it didn’t have to be an "OR"? What if it could be an “AND”?
For small business owners and nonprofit leaders who are constantly juggling it all, prioritizing is mission critical. In our previous discussion, we delved into capacity building strategies to increase the bench strength of organizations and teams and why resistance to change is so common (and how to overcome it). Now, it’s time to dive into the third part of the series: mastering prioritization. By honing this skill, you can shift your focus from feeling overwhelmed to working smarter, ensuring you and your team focus energy on the highest value, biggest Return on Investment (ROI) tasks.
Why Prioritization is Non-Negotiable
Prioritizing isn’t just about getting through a to-do list—it’s about aligning your efforts with what truly moves the needle. When everything feels like a priority, it can be hard to distinguish between what’s urgent and what’s important. This often leads to burnout, frustration, and missed opportunities.
As a small business or nonprofit leader, you're likely wearing many hats. One minute you're solving a customer issue, the next you're fundraising, and before you know it, the day’s gone. Without a clear prioritization framework, you risk spinning your wheels on lower-impact activities while your biggest opportunities slip away.
The “Big Three” Approach to Prioritization
There’s an effective approach to prioritization that works wonders for businesses and nonprofits alike: the “Big Three.” Here’s how it breaks down:
Mission-Critical Tasks: These are the high-ROI tasks that directly contribute to your organization’s long-term goals. Ask yourself, “Will this move the needle in achieving my mission or growing my business?” These tasks are your top priority and should take precedence over everything else.
Supporting Tasks: These are the necessary tasks that don’t directly drive growth but are still crucial to your operations. For example, team meetings, payroll, and administrative duties fall into this category. They ensure that the gears keep turning, but they shouldn’t dominate your focus.
Low-Impact Tasks: These are the tasks that may feel urgent but don’t add significant value. Checking emails every hour or constantly monitoring social media fall into this category. These should be minimized, delegated, or bundled into specific time blocks so they don’t distract from your more important work.
The Power of "AND": Integrating Work and Life Priorities
One of the greatest challenges of leadership is balancing the demands of work and personal life. The idea of "AND" rather than "OR" is about harmonizing those priorities instead of forcing yourself to choose between them.
Here’s how to approach it:
Align Your Schedule with Your Values: Your calendar should reflect what’s most important to you, both personally and professionally. If family time is a core value, block that time out (also known as “defensive scheduling”) in the same way you would for a meeting with a client. Treat it with the same level of importance.
Delegate and Empower Your Team: Effective prioritization also means knowing when to delegate. Capacity building has equipped your team with the skills they need to take on more responsibility. Trust your team to handle the supporting tasks while you focus on mission-critical work.
Time Blocking for Maximum Impact: Use time blocking to structure your day. Dedicate specific hours for your high-ROI tasks, personal priorities, and administrative work. By giving each priority its own space, you can approach your day with clarity and purpose, avoiding the feeling of being pulled in too many directions.
Tools to Support Prioritization
To effectively prioritize, you need the right tools in your arsenal. Consider implementing some of these strategies and tools to streamline your prioritization process:
The Eisenhower Matrix: This is a simple framework to help you categorize tasks by urgency and importance. Use it to clarify where your efforts should be focused.
Project Management Software: Tools like Asana, Trello, or Monday can help you visualize and organize your priorities, delegate tasks to your team, and ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.
Time-Tracking Tools: Apps like Toggl or RescueTime can help you identify where your time is going, allowing you to adjust your focus and cut out low-impact activities.
Growth Strategy (and Stick to It): Develop a growth strategy and vision that serves as your roadmap for activities in your business. You might be presented with three different vertical options for your business (we just examined a case study recently of a BBQ restaurant that was considering expanding into three more brick-and-mortar restaurants, creating a line of spicy BBQ sauces, AND exporting the product). When you look deeper at the financials, the numbers tell you everything about which vertical is most profitable now. We can help you develop this growth strategy to better align your priorities with the big picture goals.
Creating a Culture of Prioritization
Prioritization shouldn’t just be a personal practice—it should be embedded in your organizational culture. When your team understands and embraces the importance of prioritizing, it ensures that everyone is pulling in the same direction. This requires clear communication, regular check-ins, and empowering your team to make decisions based on what’s most important.
Encourage your team to take ownership of their priorities and foster an environment where the focus is on outcomes, not just busywork. By doing so, you’ll cultivate a culture that values high-impact work and supports long-term success.
Final Thoughts: Focus on What Matters Most
Prioritizing isn’t about doing everything—it's about doing the right things. As a leader, your ability to focus on mission-critical tasks, delegate effectively, and maintain balance between work and life will define your success. By embracing prioritization as a core strategy, you’ll empower your organization to thrive without sacrificing what matters most.
Remember: You don’t have to choose between work and life. With the right priorities in place, you can have both.
Stay focused on what truly drives impact, and you’ll find that time, once elusive, will start working in your favor.
