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GTD: Priorities don't exist in a vacuum

If you're a fan of Getting Things Done, you're familiar with the Four Criteria Model for choosing tasks. It's where the rubber meets the road in GTD, because it's the way you decide, in the moment, how any one of those wonderful tasks you've been tracking in your big system actually gets done.

As common sense as it seems to GTD'ers, this model is one of the more controversial aspects of Getting Things Done for a simple reason: it posits that priority is not the only factor in deciding what to do at a given time. It's just one of four factors, which include, all told:

  1. Context - Where are you? What tools are available? What are the limits and possibilities unique to this moment?
  2. Time available - Do you have, for example, 30 seconds, 30 minutes, or 30 hours available to you right now? What tasks could you accomplish given the time you have?
  3. Energy available - Are you full of energy, is your ass dragging, or are you somewhere in between? Which of the tasks on your list could you finish, given that energy level?
  4. Priority - If you had access to all the tools, opportunities, time, and energy you needed, what's the most important or time-sensitive thing you could do right now?

When I'm helping coach people on getting it together, they're often puzzled by this seeming bit of new-agery -- partly, I suspect, because most of us have been conditioned all our lives to think that pre-ordained Priority stamps always trump everything, all the time, always, forever, in all cases, end of story. But is it true, reasonable, or even physically possible to always work this way? Can you will yourself into doing only your identified high-priority items anytime, all the time?

Nope, and I'll show you one reason why.


Stressful times for Worker Bee

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.

  1. You learn you got a citation from those choads in the Homeowner's Association, and they declare that if you don't remove that El Camino from your front yard today, they'll start fining you $200 a day.
  2. Your favorite client emailed you a freakin' week ago, and you still haven't responded. You fear that your relationship will be permanently damaged if you don't respond this morning.
  3. Your bank account is overdrawn and you have to make a deposit or else the late fees and penalties will go up and up and up.
  4. Your sister leaves a voicemail saying that if you don't pick up the crap you left in her garage, she's throwing it out tomorrow. Your Boba Fett action figure and Dungeon Master's Guide are in that garage, and you can't bear the thought of losing them.

All extremely high priorities to this person, and for good reasons, each. So he has to do them all the second they come up, right? Well, maybe.

Worker Bee buzzes into high-priority action!

But let's look at some additional factors in the worker bee's life that affect the immediate do-ability of each of these high-priority tasks -- things for which raw priority may not account.

  • #1 The errant El Camino citation comes up while you're in Kazakhstan, and the only keys to the car are currently in your right hip pocket -- which is also currently in Kazakhstan. How will you move the car right now? You can't. The context is wrong and, by extension, you don't have the time (to fly overseas) to take care of it by sundown today. **BZZZZZT!**
  • #2 The late email you wanted to send is briefly on your mind as you sit in the Emergency Room holding your sick kid. Well, for one, your priority just got changed for you. And for another, you don't have a computer or smart phone with you anyhow. No dice, Superdad. **BZZZZZT!**
  • #3 That stupid overdraft shows up via BlackBerry while you're on a quick break from a marathon meeting with your bosses. But you don't have either your checking account number or your bank card with you, plus you're due back in that career-defining meeting in 20 seconds. **BZZZZZT!**
  • #4 Your beloved geek toys' endangered status update arrives at the very moment you're vomiting yellow, half-shrimp-filled goo thanks to the food poisoning you just picked up from that leftover quart of paella. If you weren't blowing golden chunks, you might be able to make the trip to her house in time, but for now, it's probably a non-starter. **BZZZZZT!**

So, did I cheat to start with just priority and only later give you the contextual details? No, not really. That's actually the point.

Priority mania considered harmful

On some level, this happens to you every day, but even the hugest priority can only be seen clearly in terms of the big picture. Priorities don't care who they compete with, and, from one vantage point, that's kinda what makes them priorities.

Hell, Priority Task Number One (flagged “HIGH PRIORITY!!!”) could give a fig whether “HIGH PRIORITY!!!” items 2 through n ever get a single gulp of oxygen. Priorities, left to their own devices, are selfish bastards. That's their job.

But, remember: priorities represent a snapshot in time and space -- they may escalate, de-escalate, disappear, or, more often than not, they'll be subject to getting bumped by both bigger priorities and by the immutable limitations of time, space, and being a corporeal (sometimes vomiting) human being. Sucks, but it's life, right?

Sidebar: Flag burning

Consider how often you use the “HIGH PRIORITY!!!” flag not as a practical planning tool, but as a way to try and motivate yourself. Is it really the priority that’s set to “HIGH” — or is it just your anxiety and guilt about being behind right now?

Negotiation skills

The first thing to know is that in GTD, there are three ways of resolving a problematic commitment -- you can either:

  • complete it (jump on a plane; borrow a computer; cancel the boss meeting to fetch your bank card; drive while barfing copiously all over yourself)
  • renegotiate the commitment (sweet-talk the ultimatum givers; plan to apologize later to the client; reschedule the meeting)
  • break it (suck up the fact you're getting fined, losing a client, or never seeing your Dungeon Dice again, then just pick up the pieces later on)

You can choose how you deal with high-priority items that can't be done when and how you'd like, but you'll never bend the space-time continuum. Plus, you'll probably strain your lower back trying.

Who's flagging who?

This is not by any means to say that priorities aren't important. I mean, that's why they're called priorities. But you have to take care to understand the larger picture at all times, and to not become so obsessed about priority-centric planning that you create impossible situations and unreasonable expectations for yourself. It's a sure path to serial procrastination for one thing.

When you're self-aware and honest enough tomorrow morning to say "Screw it, I'm going to sharpen pencils for 10 minutes" or "You know, this deadline is impossible without flipping my life upside down" you're turning a corner. You've begun to permit yourself a broader understanding of the real world, in which, as the sole traffic cop for your life, you are in the unique position to decide what's do-able at any given moment.

“But...I'm, like, important

I imagine I'll hear from people in comments who have the kind of incredibly important job where Horrible Things happen if they don't prioritize the shit out of everything and do it all flawlessly each day. Or maybe they work in Candy Land, where lollipops grow on trees and any perceived priority can be made to trump reality as easily as delicious nectar can be sipped from a flower. But, for the rest of us, I stand by the point: obsess single-mindedly over priority at your peril.

Unless you can always satisfy the big red letter commitments you've created for yourself -- as well as the ones that are constantly being generated for you by others -- an obsession with priority alone is pointlessly stress-inducing, unhealthy, and unrealistic. The truth is that sometimes you have crap days, pencils need to be sharpened, or maybe you just don't have the tools or energy to do what you want the second you want. That's life, pal. Deal.

So, instead of having an aneurysm about it, just rally, and do what you can with what you've got. That's all any of us can really do, and faking it in order to feel more productive (or more important) gets you no place fast.

TubbyMike's picture

Thanks Merlin. Another great...

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.

 
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