The Bad Habit That Even Productive People Keep Falling Into

It’s preventing you from becoming truly effective

Photo: Glenn Carstens-Peters/Unsplash

After managing large teams across Google for many years, and now, as an investor, having the chance to observe dozens of highly effective startups, I’ve seen there is one major difference between people who are “just” productive and those who are truly effective: knowing how to prioritize.

My own relationship with prioritization is a perpetual work-in-progress. I still fall back into a habit I’ve long tried to break: working on the stuff that seems easiest to complete, or the tasks that give me the most satisfaction or accolades, or simply the latest item that came in, rather than what I actually most need to work on. But I have been improving lately by following three guidelines, which might help you, too.

1. Prioritize what requires your input for others to move forward. Think of it as “downstream” impact. Is your lack of action on a task blocking others from moving forward on something that is important to them? Move it to the top of your list.
   Especially if my involvement doesn’t require much time, I try to move these tasks along quickly so as to not create process delays. If I know it’s not something I can attend to quickly, I’ll give the dependent parties a clear timeframe so they can gauge their own plan or…