The simple tool and method I use for managing my daily priorities

At a time of year when many of us are setting goals and intentions, I am sharing the simple tool and method I have used for many years to manage my priorities

At some point in your career, you will likely reach the point at which it is no longer possible to finish your to-do list. Instead, you will find that there is a never-ending list of possible ways to spend your time, and of places where your skills and experience could be helpful to people in your organization, to your customers, to your network. It is no longer about producing more, but about finding the opportunities to make the most impact, whether that is directly or through others. Personal prioritization becomes a daily challenge, and constantly evaluating tradeoffs is of utmost importance. There are many tools and methods out there for managing one’s personal daily/weekly priorities, and since it is the time of year when many of us are digging into a new set of goals, I thought I’d share the tool and method that has worked for me over many years and different types of jobs.

I spent many of my formative career years working at GE HealthCare, back before it spun off from GE. My entry to the company via an acquisition in 2006 made this a happy accident as opposed to a deliberate choice, but I found that the company was a great fit for me and I stayed for many years longer than I would have initially predicted. One of the main reasons for my long tenure is that GE is well known for its focus on learning and development, whether through formal courses, stretch assignments, rotations in different parts of the business, mentoring programs, or its underlying culture of learning. I learned a tremendous amount during that period, and adopted many different tools and techniques from training courses and materials, and from the various leaders I observed and emulated over the years.

Among those many learnings, one very simple (and decided manual) tool¹ that I still use today for this ongoing personal prioritization exercise is probably the one that I get asked about the most: I always carry around a piece of paper (usually folded and nestled into my notebook) divided into 4 quadrants, which are labeled Big, Small, Fix, and Contact².

• Big: This is the list of major impacts I need to make or initiatives that I need to move forward to meet goals or drive change. There are usually 3-5 items listed in this quadrant, and they are not individual tasks, but umbrella themes or objectives.

• Small: This is the list of smaller action items, follow-ups, etc. that I amass over the course of the week’s meetings and conversations.

• Fix: These are usually issues that require more than a simple action item to take care of them. Many times, I put items in this category because we haven’t figured out the root cause of the problem, and/or because the path to solve the problem isn’t yet clear.

• Contact: This is the list of people that I need to call/text/Slack/meet with for some reason or another (and sometimes a mix of little personal things I need to take care of).

I write things down on the piece of paper, and cross them off (with much satisfaction) when I am done with them. Pretty standard stuff. So, what happens when the piece of paper gets messy and full after a few days? This is where I find the magic in this simple tool. I take a blank template, and start over.

Stay with me for a moment. Yes, it sounds like a big waste of time, but in fact, it isn’t when approached deliberately. I painstakingly rewrite the 3 to 5 things in the Big quadrant, and take a moment to ask myself, did I actually move the needle on these at all this week, or was I swallowed up in a flurry of little urgent tasks? Same thing on the Fix quadrant: what needs to happen to move these items toward resolution? Is there a next step I should be prioritizing? If so, I write down some next steps to move these important things forward, and take some action.

In the Small and Contact quadrants (usually the most crowded sections of the paper), I look at anything that isn’t crossed out and ask myself if the item is worth writing it down again on the new sheet. If it’s fast and important, I just do it then instead of writing it again. Or if it’s important but not needed right away, I might put a tickler on my calendar for a month or two in the future to revisit the item instead of writing it down again. Even better, if it doesn’t turn out to be that important after all, I cross it off and let it go.

I tried to convert this tool to a digital format maybe ten years ago, but I found that the digital approach didn’t work as well for me, because it didn’t force the regular reflection, as the items just stayed on the list forever. The paper gets messy and full at least weekly, so that forces me to stop and get organized again.

This tool and accompanying reflection have worked for me through many different roles and levels of my career; sometimes, simple really works. If you have any favorite tools or methods for this ongoing prioritization exercise, please share!

1. I did not invent the original tool, and would love to credit the author, if any of my GE colleagues knows the original source.

2. The original tool had Call as the 4th quadrant, but I have modified this to align with the many different methods of interaction.