How to Prioritize When Everything Feels Important

Sometimes the problem with prioritizing isn’t that you don’t know what’s important.

The problem is that everything feels important.

The work project really does need to get finished. The laundry really does need to get done. You really do need to buy groceries, answer that email, make the appointment, deal with the paperwork, and figure out what everyone is eating for dinner.

At this time of year, add Yom Tov preparation to the list.

There’s food to make, a sukkah to build, shopping, cleaning, schedules, and all the practical things required to make Yom Tov happen.

None of those things are fake priorities.

So how do you prioritize when everything feels important?

I’ve been thinking about this because recently I didn’t stop and reassess my priorities. External limits forced me to stop.

Sometimes You Don’t Realize You Need to Change Priorities

I’ve been hyperfocused on a few projects.

You know the kind of focused where this is THE THING and you want to keep going until it’s finished?

That.

I want to finish the project, launch it, and take it off my plate. Except the tools I’m using have limits on how much I can do in a day, and at one point I realized I was going to have to stop working on the project for two days.

I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrated I was. I looked for workarounds so I could keep going, but it was fruitless. Which made me even more frustrated.

But once I came to terms with the fact that I couldn’t work on the project anymore, I started noticing all the other moving parts that still needed my attention.

The project hadn’t suddenly become unimportant.

I’d become so focused on moving in one direction that I’d stopped asking whether it was still the thing that most needed my attention.

In my case, something external forced me to stop, but that isn’t really the optimal situation. I’d rather get better at noticing that myself.

How Do You Know What Needs Your Attention Right Now?

When everything feels important, deciding what to prioritize doesn’t necessarily mean figuring out which things matter and which things don’t.

Several things can matter at the same time.

The more useful question is:

What needs my attention right now?

That’s slightly different from asking, “What’s important?”

Something can be important and still wait.

Something else may not have been at the top of your list yesterday, but because of a deadline, another person, the time of year, or circumstances that have changed, it may need your attention today.

The challenge is noticing when that happens.

Are You Still Working From an Old Decision?

This week’s Torah reading made me think about that.

Haazinu falls during the Aseret Yemei Teshuva this year. Normally, Haazinu is followed by a haftarah that echoes its themes, pairing Moshe’s song with David’s song.

But this week is Shabbat Shuvah, so we don’t read the regular Haazinu haftarah. Instead, we read Shuvah Yisrael, “Return, O Israel.”

The regular haftarah makes sense when Haazinu falls on an ordinary Shabbat. But when Haazinu falls on Shabbat Shuvah, the shift in the reading reminds us that sometimes we need to shift our focus too.

I think there’s something useful in that beyond this particular Shabbat.

We make decisions about our priorities, and then we keep moving.

Finish the project.

Prepare for Yom Tov.

Deal with the paperwork and the rest of the work stuff.

Once we’ve decided THIS IS THE THING, it can be surprisingly easy to keep giving it our attention without stopping to ask whether circumstances have changed, because sometimes they do.

Changing Priorities Doesn’t Mean the Original Priority Was Wrong

When you change direction, you don’t necessarily have to decide that you were wasting your time before.

My project still matters. I still want to finish it. The thing is, the rest of my work is also important, and so are all my other responsibilities.

All those things don’t magically go away, and even when I delegate, I still have to stay on top of things because that’s my job as the CEO of the family.

It’s possible to be so focused on all the tasks that need to be done that we miss the focus on how we need to change.

The question is what needs our attention now.

Don’t Wait Until Something Forces You to Stop

In my case, the decision was made for me.

The tool stopped me.

I don’t know why my project was delayed, and I’m not going to pretend that G-d imposed a token limit specifically because I needed to switch my focus, but I do believe G-d’s plan is better than mine.

So when something interrupts the trajectory I had planned, maybe my job isn’t always to spend all my energy fighting the interruption.

Sometimes it’s worth looking around.

What else has been waiting while I’ve been hyperfocused on this?

Even better, maybe I don’t have to wait for the token limit, canceled appointment, missed deadline, exhausted family member, or some other interruption to force me to look up.

I can choose to look up.

A Simple Way to Reassess Your Priorities

If everything feels important, start with what you’re already doing.

Ask yourself:

Does this need my attention right now, or have I kept giving it my attention because I already decided it was the priority?

Then look at what else is competing for your attention.

Has something changed?

Is there a real deadline approaching?

Is another person waiting for something from you?

Is there something that can only be done now?

Is there something important you’ve been neglecting because you’re so focused on finishing the thing in front of you?

You don’t have to reorganize your entire life every time you ask these questions.

You may decide that the thing you’re doing is still the priority.

Great. Keep going.

But at least it’s a decision you’re making now, based on what needs your attention now, rather than a decision you made three days ago and haven’t reconsidered.

Get Future Priorities Out of Your Head

There’s one more thing that makes this easier.

If something is important but doesn’t need your attention yet, give it somewhere else to live.

Write it down.

Put the deadline on your calendar. That way, choosing not to focus on something now doesn’t mean you have to keep remembering it.

For me right now, Sukkot is a perfect example.

There are plenty of things I need to do for Sukkot, but I don’t need to mentally rehearse every single one of them while I’m trying to give the Aseret Yemei Teshuva the attention they deserve.

I can put those details somewhere I trust and come back to them when it’s time.

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Sometimes everything really is important.

That doesn’t mean everything needs your attention at the same time.

Every once in a while, look up from whatever you’ve decided is THE THING and ask:

What needs my attention right now?