How to Prioritize When Everything Feels Important

[00:02] and you don't know where to start and everything feels super important and maybe also urgent, then let's talk about that because there is a simple system that you can use to sort through this to-do list and figure out which things

[00:14] to-do list and figure out which things are really the most important and also urgent so that you can decide where to start and what is the most important thing that you work on now to avoid major bad consequences, but also make

[00:27] sure that you are working on your goals. So, let's get into this. I have worked up this little spreadsheet here and I have populated it with a bunch of random to-dos. So, what I did is I came over here to ChatGPT and I asked it to

[00:42] generate a mixed-up random list of 20 tasks that a content creator might have on their plate if they have a podcast, a YouTube channel, they do Instagram, and they're working on launching a course. Now, this may or may not be your actual

[00:54] the chances, all right? But, it'll be easier to explain how to work this system if we've got a mixed-up to-do list with some mixed-up priorities to the very first thing we need to do is just organize them by project. We need

[01:09] just going to jump in here, start moving some things around, and figuring out that this person is working on. First off, we've got these podcast show notes. So, I'm going to move this down and we're going to add a project that is a

[01:23] podcast. Next up, there's a task here relating to launching the course. So, relating to launching the course. So, let's add that. YouTube tasks here. So, let's create a category for that. And then there are

[01:37] also some Instagram tasks as well. So, Instagram. Now, of course, you can totally do the whole process in something like Asana or ClickUp or whatever project management software you like to use. I wanted to just use a

[01:50] spreadsheet for this example here in the video so that you can see how you can do do even with a free tool, but it would certainly be easier to move the tasks around and organize them by project if you were using an actual project

[02:03] me just a couple minutes to organize all the tasks by project and it's already feeling a lot more manageable, a lot less chaotic. The next thing we want to do though is sequence them. And what I mean by that is we want to put them in

[02:17] done. Like what is the first thing that we need to do for the podcast? Next the podcast and so on. And then for the course launch, like what is the first thing that we need to do? What's the next thing and so on. And so here we're

[02:30] just thinking about like what tasks are dependent on what other tasks. We're not are there certain things that have to be done before other things. So when it comes to the podcast, all of these tasks are fairly independent and not

[02:44] necessarily dependent on each other, but it does seem to me like it makes sense to finish up working on last week's episode first. And then if we are going to be updating the branding, we might need to add a task in here that is to

[02:56] need to add a task in here that is to create the updated intro and outro for the podcast. So I'm just going to go in here and do that. And then once it is created or recorded, then we could edit it. And then of course we could record

[03:08] though since it's not on this list, but we will be able to use that updated podcast intro and outro and then they'll be ready to go. So then we can schedule the episodes and that seems like it makes sense to do before we are

[03:22] coordinating with guests for future episodes since we need to make sure of out to the listeners. Okay, let's come now. Now again, these tasks aren't necessarily dependent on one another

[03:35] very much, but I do see that creating the workbook PDF for the course would definitely need to come after outlining the module three lessons. So let's go ahead and move those two items around. And then it would be helpful to have the

[03:50] testimonials ready to go before we are creating the sales page. So, let's move creating the sales page. So, let's move those two items as well.

[04:04] creating the sales page before we are writing the launch emails or testing the organized all these tasks. Obviously, because they are random tasks generated by Chat GPT, they're not as like dependent or sequential as your real

[04:17] to-do list might be. And also, your real to-do list, you might have already kind of done this step because you're not going to be writing down your tasks in random orders normally. So, it's probably mostly done, but it still is

[04:29] always good to go in there and think about what is dependent on what because that immediately is going to help you figure out what you should do first. ranking some things. So, specifically, I want you to start with your goals or

[04:44] your projects that you're working on. How urgent are each of them and how about the individual tasks right now, just these just these projects. And by the way, I left these projects having these

[04:57] checkboxes because they might be things that you will actually finish and check off. Now, some of them are more like long-term processes, at least in this something we're going to finish, but launching your course certainly is. And

[05:11] your project here, it might not be just YouTube videos, but it might be like publish this YouTube video on such and such a topic or publish YouTube video this specific title. And those are things that you will check off.

[05:24] Okay, so coming in here, how urgent are each of these things? How important are they? So, podcast is a little bit urgent because maybe you have a weekly to 10, I would say we can give the podcast a six or a seven because it's

[05:37] moderately urgent. And how important is it? Well, it depends on what it's doing for your business, right? If this is a main way that you generate leads, this could be very important. If it's just something new that you're trying out or

[05:49] your business, you know, not very important. So, for the sake of this podcast a six here. Now, the course launch, this one is pretty urgent because we have an impending like course launch date that

[06:04] we have already promised. So, we're going to say a nine. And it's also expecting a lot of revenue to come in from this course launch. So, I'm going to give it an eight here. Now, YouTube videos, how urgent is this?

[06:17] flexible your schedule for posting on YouTube. So, we're going to say only like a five with urgency, but it is very important cuz that's where a lot of your leads come from. So, we will give it an eight for importance.

[06:30] And then we've got Instagram. So, Instagram, obviously like pretty flexible on timing normally. So, we're just going to give it a five for urgency. And then for importance, also it maybe it is not a major part of your

[06:43] business. So, we'll just give it a four for importance. So, now this immediately is going to help us see which group of tasks we need to focus on first. And as tasks, these are going to be the most important followed by podcast and

[06:57] YouTube videos being like fairly equal in importance. In this case, it seems like YouTube videos are a little bit more important to this business. But how would you decide between those two if they were kind of equal in importance

[07:09] and urgency? Well, this is where the deadlines and consequences come in. So, let's actually add a column here to the right. And this one's going to be for consequences. So, consequences, of course, are what will happen if you

[07:23] don't get this task done by its deadline. So, for the podcast. Now, again, keep in mind we're talking more about like the next podcast episode. What is the deadline for the next podcast episode? Let's say that that

[07:35] episode is going to be coming out like a week from now and that that date is going to be um March 9th, okay? And then for the course launch, we have put this deadline on it. It's going to be launching at the end of the month, so

[07:49] March 30th. The YouTube video, again, this is for the next YouTube video. Maybe it's coming up a little bit sooner and we 7th. And then Instagram, obviously there's

[08:01] not really a deadline here. We might have a deadline for a specific piece of content, but it's more just that kind of that hamster wheel, right? So we're not Consequences, what bad thing will happen if we do not publish the podcast by 3 9

[08:18] um or it's significantly late? Well, maybe we will lose leads. Maybe we will kind of damage the trust with our listeners or lose trust.

[08:37] sales. Now, those are some pretty significant consequences. They're not saying that we won't have any leads or that we'll lose all the trust with the listeners or that we won't have any course sales, but it is going to be

[08:51] impacting our revenue for this business. Now, coming down to the course launch, what will happen if we don't launch the course on this date? Well, we definitely especially if we never launch the course, then we won't have any of that

[09:05] revenue, but even if we launch the course a few days late, it might make can't trust us, and so they're a lot less likely to buy the course. So, I'm just going to put lose a lot of course sales. And then also maybe we

[09:19] sales. And then also maybe we potentially lose future customers because they don't trust us as much. With the YouTube videos, it's going to be pretty much the same thing as the podcast, at least in this situation.

[09:33] if we don't post on Instagram, probably we're losing leads. Um like both present and also future because if we don't keep posting on Instagram, then we kind of won't stay on

[09:47] the algorithm's good side, we won't keep growing, and so that could kind of erode the the reach of our account. So now that we see these consequences and we see the due dates, it becomes a little bit easier to decide what to focus on.

[10:00] While the course launch is a little bit further in the future, it is very have a big consequence if we didn't follow through on this course that we said we were going to launch. So this is going to be fairly high priority, and

[10:13] then the podcast and the YouTube videos, their due dates are coming up sooner, so though they're a little bit less important. And the YouTube video we're supposed to publish a little sooner, so we need to prioritize that. Now for step

[10:26] number five, we can go through and we can rate the urgency of kind of the first task for each of these different projects that we're working on. Now, if you have sequenced them so that you have like the first task first and the others

[10:39] are dependent on this, you don't necessarily need to rank the urgency of all the other tasks because they will come after that first task is completed. the first. You also don't really need to rank the importance of that task because

[10:55] we are assuming that this task is essential for this project. However, if as you are doing this, you realize that actually this thing could be delegated or this thing doesn't need to be done at all, that is definitely um a good thing

[11:07] to be looking out for. So for the podcast, we've got writing the podcast show notes for last week's episode. How urgent, how important is that? Is it the task we should work on right now? Well, it's probably about like a six for

[11:20] urgent because that's how urgent the podcast is overall. We want to be able to publish the next episode on time, so we need to get this done, but it's not super important. In In we actually could skip this and nothing terrible would

[11:34] Coming down here to the course launch, we really do need to outline this module it's more that it's urgent that it gets deadline. So, I'm going to give this a nine for urgency and then also a nine

[11:50] for importance because we can't launch this course without outlining module three, right? With the YouTube videos, researching the keywords and titles for planning to publish a YouTube video soon and we haven't done this yet, well, that

[12:03] is going to be very urgent. It's not as important as like launching the course itself, but it's pretty important. So, we'll give it a seven. And then coming down here, responding to the DMs, that is very urgent. Like

[12:16] we'll give it a nine for urgency, but it's not super important if this isn't one of our main sources of leads. So, we'd probably give it like a four or a five for importance. So, now we can look at these scores and it's easy to see

[12:29] here because it's very urgent and important and we also need to focus on urgent and moderately important. And so now we know what we need to focus on right now. And I really do think that the most important part of this process

[12:44] is just organizing tasks by project and making sure that those tasks are in the project management system you use like Asana or ClickUp or something, then like whole process in there. But if you would like to use a spreadsheet like this,

[12:59] the description below where you can grab a copy of this one without all the tasks all those things and just keep this and important columns and the consequence and then like the check

[13:14] that down below if that'd be helpful to you. But that is everything for today's video. I hope you guys really enjoyed it and found this interesting and helpful. If you did, please do give it a like to let me know and also to help it surface

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