How to Prioritize Tasks: 7 Powerful Frameworks for Prioritization

Your ability to prioritize will determine your future.

One of the biggest challenges for managers is knowing how to prioritize tasks.

We all want to be as productive as possible.

But most days you find yourself working with little direction and purpose. Working on other people’s priorities while your to-do list grows.

Like someone is pulling you in a million different directions. Balancing multiple projects and tasks. Feeling swamped and not knowing where to start.

You’re hardly alone.

Without a system for prioritizing tasks at work, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

So I’m going to let you in on a secret of productivity:

Think of the successful people you know or admire. Do you know the one thing they do better than anyone else? They prioritize their tasks better.

They work on the most important tasks that help achieve their goals. First, they decide what’s important, and then work on them.

Mastering prioritization can change your life.

“I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done.” — ​Steve Jobs​

Prioritizing well is the common thread behind successful people.

Your ability to prioritize will determine your future.

When priorities are piling up, you need a clear framework to take you from chaos to clarity.

Here are my top 7 favorite frameworks to prioritize tasks.

Create a master task list

If you’re anything like me, your to-dos arrive from a dozen different places. Your goals, email, instant messages, a colleague asking for a favor.

It’s impossible to prioritize your tasks if they’re all in your head.

The first step to prioritize your tasks efficiently is to create a master task list with all your to-dos.

Do a ​brain dump of all the tasks you need to complete across all your projects. Break down bigger tasks into smaller sub-tasks.