Prioritizing Tasks

This document provides systematic approaches to prioritizing tasks when everything feels urgent and important, covering task list creation and maintenance, urgency assessment based on consequence timing, importance evaluation through impact and dependencies, effort sizing strategies, strategic timing of complex work around interruption patterns, and managing expectations when workload exceeds capacity through team collaboration or task elimination.

The Overwhelming Workload Challenge

When Everything Seems Critical

The previous discussion established the need to have time available to work on tasks that are important but not necessarily urgent. But sometimes it feels like everything is important and everything is urgent.

Typical overwhelming scenario:

The overwhelm pattern:

What can be done to figure out how to spend the limited time available? There’s a lot to say about this, and everyone works a little differently. So finding the system that works best individually is necessary. But covering the basic structure that can help with organization and prioritization is the starting point.

Step 1: Create a Comprehensive Task List

Capturing All Work

The first step is to make a list of all of the tasks that need to get done.

Task list medium options:

The point is to have all the tasks listed in one place to avoid depending on memory that is not always perfect later.

Task capture best practices:

Essential task information to capture:

Important

Writing down all tasks in a single, centralized location frees mental capacity from trying to remember everything, reduces stress about forgetting important work, and provides the foundation for effective prioritization decisions.

Step 2: Assess True Urgency

The Urgency Test

Once the list exists, checking the real urgency of the tasks is the next step. Ask: if any items don’t get done today, will something bad happen? If yes, then those should be worked on first.

Urgency assessment criteria:

Urgency categories with examples:

Common false urgency signals:

Once completing the most critically urgent tasks, looking at the rest of the list and assessing the importance of each issue is the next phase.

Step 3: Evaluate Importance

Distinguishing Importance

Even when it looks like everything is important, being able to tell that some things are more important than others should be possible.

Importance evaluation criteria:

Importance ranking examples:

Importance Factors

For example, a task that will benefit more people is more important than a task that will benefit less people. If there are a bunch of different tasks that depend on completing one, that roadblock is more important to clear than the rest.

Roadblock identification:

Grouping by Importance

If it still seems like everything is on fire, dividing the tasks into groups of most important, important, and not so important is possible. And then sorting the tasks inside each group, but not spending too much time doing this sorting.

Three-tier importance grouping:

Sorting within groups:

In the end, the exact order isn’t what matters. What matters is spending most of the time working on the most important tasks.

Note

Perfect prioritization is impossible and unnecessary. The goal is to ensure time is predominantly spent on high-impact work, not to create a flawlessly ordered list. Rough prioritization that enables action beats perfect prioritization that delays work.

Step 4: Team Alignment

Shared Prioritization

If working with a team of people, it’s a good idea to share both the list of tasks and the standard of prioritization among team members. This helps avoid having to do the work multiple times and coming out with different priorities.

Benefits of shared prioritization:

Team prioritization practices:

Shared prioritization tools:

Step 5: Estimate Effort Size

Rough Sizing

Once having a list of the most important tasks to work on, wanting a rough idea of how much effort they’ll take is natural. This isn’t about exact timing, it’s about assigning rough sizes.

Common sizing techniques:

T-shirt sizing example:

One common technique is to use small, medium, and large. And when the range of sizes is big enough, including extra small or extra large if needed.

Effort estimation factors:

Caution

Effort estimates are inherently uncertain, especially for unfamiliar work. Use ranges rather than precise numbers, expect estimates to be wrong, and adjust based on actual time spent to improve future estimates.

Step 6: Strategic Work Timing

Starting with Large Important Tasks

Once identifying the most important tasks and how big they are, starting to work on them is possible. If possible, trying to start with the larger, most important tasks to get those out of the way first is ideal.

Large task first advantages:

Managing Interruptions

But as called out, when work involves IT support, dealing with interruptions is known. And working on complex tasks while getting interrupted can be very frustrating.

Interrupt impact by task size:

Strategic timing approach:

One strategy that can help is saving the most complex tasks for the moments when being less likely to get interrupted is expected. If knowing that the busiest time is in the morning, and tending to have more quiet time during the afternoon, it makes sense to work on easy and quick tasks early in the day. Save the most complex tasks for later, when having more time to concentrate on them will be available.

Daily task timing strategy:

But when focused time starts, ensuring work on those large complex tasks and not on the easy ones is critical. Otherwise, the complex tasks will never get done.

Focus time discipline:

Important

The key here is to always work on important tasks. If a task is not important, it shouldn’t be done at all. This principle from Google emphasizes that time spent on unimportant work is time stolen from important work, regardless of how satisfying completing easy tasks might feel.

Step 7: Task Selection Framework

Matching Tasks to Available Time

Select which task to deal with depending on urgency and how much time can be devoted to it, starting with the biggest tasks that can fit in the time available.

Task selection decision matrix:

Example task selection scenarios:

Balancing Breaks and Experiments

But keep in mind, this shouldn’t stop taking a break or working on experimental projects. Taking breaks is important because it allows creative minds to stay fresh, and working on a fun side project can help research emerging technologies and come up with new ideas.

Break and experimentation importance:

Example: Google 20% time philosophy:

This very certificate program got its start as a side project at Google, demonstrating the value of protected experimentation time.

Step 8: Managing Capacity Overload

When There’s Too Much Work

Okay, but what if the unthinkable happens? What can be done if after all of this prioritizing, sizing, and ordering there’s just too much work to be done and too few hours in the day?

Capacity overload indicators:

The first thing to know is this is normal. Most people working in IT have too much to do and can’t get all the things they want done.

Why capacity overload is common in IT:

Two Options for Overload

Unfortunately, humans can’t multiply themselves on command yet and working extra hours is not sustainable long-term. Which means there are basically two options: either getting extra help from other team members or deciding that some tasks weren’t really that important, and they won’t get done.

Capacity overload resolution options:

Getting help strategies:

Reducing scope strategies:

Communication is Critical

For both of these options, involving other people, like a manager, is necessary, and making sure that expectations get clearly communicated is essential.

Capacity conversation framework:

Communication best practices:

Warning

Chronic capacity overload without addressing it leads to burnout, quality problems, and strategic work never happening. Communicate capacity constraints early and often rather than accepting unsustainable workload indefinitely.

Task Type and Sizing

Self-Contained vs. Project Work

Some tasks, like fixing the permissions in a directory, changing a faulty keyboard, or installing a new application on a single computer, can be self-contained and completed in a small amount of time.

Self-contained task characteristics:

Other tasks, like upgrading the database software to a new version, automating the creation of user accounts, or writing a wrapper to adapt to incompatible programs, are larger projects that can take several days or maybe even weeks to complete.

Project task characteristics:

Time Estimation and Communication

When that’s the case, it’s important to have a rough estimate of how long the tasks will take to be completed and to clearly communicate expectations to those affected.

Why estimates and communication matter:

Estimation for different task sizes:

Conclusion

Prioritizing tasks effectively when facing an overwhelming workload requires systematic approaches beginning with creating a comprehensive task list in a single location using paper, text files, ticket systems, or project management tools to capture all work and free mental capacity from trying to remember everything. Assessing true urgency involves asking whether something bad happens if the task isn’t completed today, distinguishing critical immediate needs like production failures or fixed deadlines from tasks that feel urgent but can wait, avoiding false urgency signals from vocal requesters or recent timing that create artificial pressure. Evaluating importance requires comparing tasks across multiple dimensions including number of people affected with more users indicating higher importance, blocking nature where roadblocks preventing other work take priority, business impact on revenue or reputation, and alignment with strategic goals versus tactical nice-to-haves. Team alignment through shared task lists and common prioritization standards prevents duplicate effort, ensures consistent decisions, and enables coordinated action with clear expectations across the organization through regular prioritization meetings and collaborative tools. Effort sizing using techniques like t-shirt sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL) or simple three-tier classifications (small, medium, large) provides rough estimates sufficient for task selection without the overhead of precise time tracking, accounting for factors like complexity, unknowns, dependencies, and experience level that impact actual duration. Strategic work timing matches task complexity to interruption patterns by saving large complex tasks requiring 2-4 hour focus blocks for quiet periods like afternoons while handling quick easy tasks during high-interruption morning periods, with discipline to work on important large tasks during focus time rather than succumbing to the temptation of clearing easy backlog items. Task selection follows a framework considering both available time and interruption risk to choose the biggest important task that fits the time window, balancing productive work with necessary breaks every 90-120 minutes and experimental projects that enable innovation and learning as demonstrated by Gmail and this certificate program originating from Google side projects. Managing capacity overload when prioritizing and sizing reveals insufficient time requires two fundamental options: obtaining extra help through team assignments, contractors, or hiring, or reducing scope by eliminating low-priority tasks and communicating that they won’t be completed, with both options requiring manager involvement and clear stakeholder communication about workload reality, capacity gaps, available options, and decisions made. Self-contained tasks like permission fixes or application installations complete in minutes to hours with simple tracking, while project work like database upgrades or automation development spans days to weeks requiring rough time estimates, clear communication of expectations to affected stakeholders, and regular progress updates with triggers for additional communication when significant delays occur.

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