[…] Productivity & Personal Development Get Some Sleep - Part 1GTD: Priorities don’t exist in a vacuum […]

Awesome post! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for this very helpful post! Really an excellent presentation of a more holistic way to think about work.

A great post. Thanks Merlin

Merlin this is one of the best posts I ever read on 43folders. Thanks!

Probably some of the best advice I’ve ever read in my life. Bravo!

Amen Brother! Knock that damn high flu-ten high priority off its damn pedestal. Tell it like is Brother Merlin!

Never be a slave to priority.

Put them damn priorities to work for YOU… and tell the man your El Camino’s gonna be on his lawn if he don’t watch it… and it ain’t gonna be parking.

Great advice for stress-relief! Similar to:

If you don’t like a situation — 1. Get out of it, or 2. Change it, or 3. Cope with it.

My problem is that I am too adept at procrastination and rationalization. I could make a career out of rearranging priorities. Does anyone pay for that kind of service?

This is the part of GTD I find hardest, so many thanks Merlin - you did it again. More please.

Recently I’ve ruled a line across all my context cards. Above the line go only the actions which have some sort of bad consequence if they don’t get done - like paying a bill.

But I still find myself with more actions than I have time to complete. And the most difficult thing is to pick out one of them to do at any given point.

[…] GTD: Priorities don’t exist in a vacuum - 43Folders […]

Andy, if you can’t decide which of the important stuff to do next, it’s likely that the consequences of not doing something are more or less equally bad for each item on the list.

Just choose one randomly (of course depending on context, time and energy) and do it. Repeat until everything is done or your time is up.

Any time somebody can combine D&D, vomit, and GTD in the same essay, I am a happy reader. Great post, Merlin.

You hinted at a problem that bears emphasizing: Many of us have a tendency to fall into one of two traps. Either we go heads-down on our Priority One task to the exclusion of all else, or we get so caught up in minutia that our P1 doesn’t get attention. We can’t stay in either mode for very long without causing problems.

Yes, I must work on the code that has to be ready for QA on Friday, but my boss asked me an unrelated question via email that only needs a two sentence reply. He’s going to be pissed if I don’t get back to him, but if I open up my email client I risk getting sucked in for hours and not getting my code done.

After years of struggling with this, I finally seem to have it licked by combining GTD with your dash idea. I keep an index card on my desk with a list of task areas: email, branch updates (it’s a programmer thing), personal tasks, straighten, check in with boss, check in with project manager, etc. When I first arrive at my desk, I give each category a dash of activity, usually starting with five minutes each. Any categories that need attention get a second, longer pass. I use a timer, since watching the clock is too easily fudged.

The dashes force me to prioritize within each category and prevent me from wandering off into the weeds. Pretty quickly I have the minutia under control and can roll up my sleeves for some serious coding. Often I’ll revisit the dashes again later in the day— usually after a natural break like lunch, bathroom trip, or an interruption by a coworker —but many days I find that I don’t need to revisit at all and can just follow my nose.

[…] Over at 43 Folders today there is fantastic post about how to prioritize all the crap going on in your life without getting stressed out. This is the core of the GTD philosphy and if you don’t feel like reading the book, at least read this post. Dig on this quote …. Let’s look at a few challenges that, over the past six months, have faced a notional Worker Bee, leading him to generate high-priority tasks. […]

[…] GTD: Priorities don’t exist in a vacuum | 43 Folders: […]

Fantastic post Merlin. Thanks for your insight.

Fabulous post, one of the true ‘best of’ 43F. Ever.

I think that what a lot of us get caught up in is the ‘completion’ of some commitment. Recall that GTD forces us to think about the ‘next action’. Sometimes, what ‘Priority!!’ really means that ‘there are one or two very important next actions here’ and that the other bits and pieces that comprise this task can wait until I’ve dealt with some other tasks that bring me some satisfaction. Usually, when faced with an ‘URGENT PRIORITY’ task, I think ‘what next action can I take to lessen the urgency/priority here?’ (i.e. respond to that email, make that call, etc).

Don’t forget that when dealing with people, they are also juggling a never-ending stream of shifting priorities. Negotiate. You are not Superman (although you would have us believe otherwise) and have a finite capacity for ‘getting stuff done’ in each 24 hour day.

Excellent Post. I read it and finally was able to exhale! Thanks.

[…] Over at 43 Folders, Merlin Mann points out that when trying to work through a number of high priority tasks, their priority is not  the best way to work your way through them. Instead, in deciding what to do next, it’s important to take your context, time and energy available into consideration. […]

Phenomenal writing and advice. Thanks

Hi Merlin-

I was at the RoadMap siminar in Chicago today and one of the question that kept being asked to The David was “but how do I prioritize what to do?”. The question was asked at least 4 times so I’m not sure people were listening closely enough. Looking back through the notes I took I noted this question and gave my own answer which sounded very close to the 4 factors of how a decision is reached. I’m a total GTD newbie (have read the book and this site but haven’t actually tried to apply anything yet) but this made total sense to me. It really takes the pressure off the whole “fake” priority thing when there are other things to consider like how much time you have to actually accomplish tasks.

One of the things David noted was that in the case where you’re feeling totally drained at the end of the day probably isn’t the best time to talk to an important client ;) That’s the time you do stuff like watering the plants.

Great seminar. I highly recommend it to anyone. 8 hours long and the first seminar I’ve been in where my attention has been kept the full time. Just a great job by David Co.

Jason

From a customer service perspective, if I was the client you hadn’t responded to in over a week, I”d fire your butt. All I would need to keep me happy is, “Got your e-mail, need to do some research. I’ll get back to you within 10 days.” Or, “Got your e-mail. I’ll leaving tomorrow on a 3 week float trip down the Colorado. I’ll e-mail you one month from today with your answers.” No response is rude, dude!

The Enemy of Focus: Priority…

…

About priorities…

Merlin Mann, author of the 43 folders blog, has published a very interesting article about priorities. If you are like many people, you must think that priorities rule your life and work, but the truth is that it is just only one of the four views that…

Throw away the PDA. Dump the phone in the throne. Pass the Blackberry to Jerry. Take some Pepto Bismol and call me in the morning. Best post yet Merlin!

Thanks Merlin. Another great post. This is real black-belt stuff, although, as usual, it didn’t occur to me until someone pointed it out. It’s a constant source of amazment how we fall so quickly into thinking “priority is equivalent to context”, when it’s just one facet of context. I guess it’s a product of the on-demand capitalist paradigm that we inhabit. We’re all urged to “Do more, with less, faster”.

Hugh has already mentioned the Tyranny of the Urgent and I think that this was a concept developed by Covey (not sure though). I try (and I stress try) to look at each incoming request in the light of “How ‘really’ urgent is this?”, but it’s hard to do when every third or fourth e-mail has one of those little red exclamation mark flags on it (Thanks Outlook.). You have to remember that just because someone else thinks it’s urgent, it might not be for you. I know, easier said than done if the e-mail’s from the VP.

Merlin’s correct in prompting us to look at factors other than priority when considering contexts of NA’s. I wish I did it more often. One place I do it that I wish I could apply to other areas of my life is in the car on the motorway. Imagine, you’re in the outside lane, overtaking a lorry (truck) that is overtaking a column of other lorries in the inside lane. As you’re doing this (at 70 m.p.h. officer!) some half-witted idiot invariably screams up behind you and stays soooo close, you could reach out of your own back window and touch his (for it is invariably a he) car. Do you pull in immediately and succumb to the Tyranny of the (his) Urgent? Not if you want to stay alive and unmaimed, I hope.

No. Rather, other factors come into the context of the situation to determine your next action. If it were me, I wait until I’ve passed the lorry and pull in applying the Rule of Thumb (another excellent Merlin post) “Pull in only when you can see the other car’s headlights in your rear-view mirror” rule. That way, you don’t kill yourself, and the guy you’ve just overtaken and damn the idiot who wants you to pull over NOW because what he’s doing is more urgent than what you’re doing. Granted, the crocodile part of my brain usually mutters “I’ll pull over when I’m ready”, but that’s just human nature on an ovecrowded road network.

OK, dumb example, but it lends weight to Merlin’s contention that priority is one facet of context for NA’s and it’s not ‘Hippy New-Age’, it’s about staying alive on the road.

Some things are urgent, but less than (other) people would have you believe and the world will still be there in the morning. I guess that we should try to view urgency as just one of the facets of context rather than the main, or exclusive facet. Thanks again to Merlin for pointing this out.

I’m rambling now, so I’ll shut up. Just to say that this is a really fascinating notion that has lots of related ideas that subconciously affect our everyday lives… It strikes me that there are patterns and anti-patterns in this subject.

Apologies for the long post.

It pains me to admit I read this on a procrastination cycle, but this is why I have 43F on my must-read list! This is the post that I’ll be keeping in mind and returning to. Instant classic!

I especially appreciated the perspective on negotiating priorities and the advice “not [to] become so obsessed about priority-centric planning that you create impossible situations and unreasonable expectations for yourself.” And that’s what’s awesome about the negotiation, it even allows that you might have created an impossible situation (priority clash) yourself, but the same rules apply. (I like Potluck Dish’s paraphrasing. Now I need to find a tattoo parlour.)

Well said.

The priority thing never felt right to me, for the reason you mentioned - it’s more a guilt meter than a tool.

For me, GTD generates natural, rather than arbitrary, priorities. Looking at my action lists every day (I use 8.5x11 paper) the day’s (or morning’s, or moment’s) priorities naturally present themselves since they depend almost entirely on available context, energy, and time. When I see an action with a kill date coming up fast, I schedule it on my calendar, as if it were an appointment.

I’ve also had to learn not to allow the intrusion of the moment to become the priority of the moment. It’s not always possible, of course, but ideally I’ll decide on the spot if an interruption gets two minutes, five minutes, or a dump for later processing.

Thanks Merlin!

Not only do you manage to say things that have been lurking around in the back of the head for quite some time. But you do it in such a clever way, and the examples are ROFL. No wonder 43folders is in my “top3” sites to check every day, or even several times a day. Yes, I know that is a bit unproductive, but I prioritize to do it. For insight, and fun.

And your CSS gets better every day, just wanted you to know.

For me one of the most liberating thigs about GTD was being free of the A-B-C-D, 1-2-3-4 of prioratising that other systems require and the constant re-negotiation of the assigned priority everytime something new came along.

Great post Merlin.

Good post.

However, without priorities, how can I choose a task when I have 196 next actions in my @Work context?