3 things about prioritisation and decision making

I often find prioritisation hard. Much is written on this and there are plenty of hacks and tactics available. This is what works for me.

Is this the most important thing to start working on now? What else could I do? Ooh, what’s the population of Estonia? And the Baltic Sea temperature in April. Yeah, it’s a mess in there. In my head.

Inspiration doesn’t come from looking at a screen

I stare at my laptop looking for prioritisation, hoping that all the cogs in my life will start working together if I just find out this or that. When I start thinking like that, I’m lost. I start hunting around, get little done, and feel even more lost.

Focus on one thing and get it done

Just get on with it, step back, reflect. It’s when I’m not staring at the laptop that some of the magic occurs. Writing thoughts down on paper, on sticky notes and most importantly, forging direction are not things that you can do with endless browsing, hoping that inspiration will land.

Retreat, reflect and re-focus

Good, on the spot, intuitive decision making only comes about when the same or similar situation has been experienced many times before. That’s how pilots and surgeons survive. They’ve experienced enough similar situations before to know what to do with thinking to hard about out.

This is why agile software development works for me. The think, act, reflect cycle is more in tune with the way the human mind is architected. We’re not designed to make good decisions in the moment surrounded by lots of unfamiliar information.

For the rest of us trying to figure out where to go, we are better trying to make a decision away from the situation. So dust off your sticky notes, sharpen your pencil, make a mess and then focus.

I’m still struggling and continually learning as I go, but it’s getting better.