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Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne. Marketing cartoons, content marketing with a sense of humor, keynote speaking.

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priority soup

September 20, 2009 2 Comments

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I was struck by something that Seth Godin wrote this week about the unheralded skill of setting priorities.  He poses the question: “how do you decide what to do next?”

A few years ago, I worked on a business that routed packaging artwork by hand to get reviewed and approved. They had a traffic department that managed this process and they marked artwork by the level of urgency so that you knew how quickly to review it.  Over time, I learned that lowest urgency was marked “Hot!”, medium urgency was marked “Hot! Hot!” and highest urgency was marked “Hot! Hot! Hot!”.

In this era of doing “more with less” where urgency ranges from “Hot!” to “Hot! Hot! Hot!”, everyone has more pots to stir.  My desk sometimes feels a lot like this cooktop.  It’s tempting just to spend time firefighting.

But that path leads to Busy Fools Syndrome.  What goes hand in hand with trying to do “more with less” is learning what to take off the priority list.  What’s more important than having a “To Do” list is having a “To Don’t” list.

I’ve been trying to manage less by urgency and more by priority lately.  I certainly don’t always have the right balance, but I’ve learned a bit from reading Tim Ferriss.

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2 Comments

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  1. Ryan says

    September 20, 2009 at 9:15 pm

    Spot on post! I can absolutely relate to this. Well done.

    Reply
  2. Thomas says

    September 21, 2009 at 6:17 am

    You might want to take a look at Coveys 4 quadrants.

    http://www.keenerliving.com/reviewing-coveys-4-quadrants

    Reply

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  • Paid licensing options include high resolution download.
  • Presentation $35.00 Add to Cart
  • Newsletter or Website $100.00 Add to Cart
  • Corporate Blog/Sponsored Post $50.00 Add to Cart
  • Looking for other licensing options? click here
  • View Cart
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