Companies are always running against time and every single thing quickly becomes an urgent priority.

Managing priorities is without any doubt one of the key challenges companies must face. Managers are particularly impacted as they have to manage their own priorities as well as their team’s priorities.

How to get organized and where to begin? Here are some simple steps managers can take to prioritize their team’s work as well as their own.

Only after having defined clear objectives for their team members and themselves, can managers define priorities.

Prioritizing means making choices and establishing a hierarchy between action items. Without a clear vision of one’s role and objectives, it is impossible to prioritize. Only after having defined clear objectives for their team members and themselves, can managers define priorities. In everyday life, when we have a meeting, we check the address before choosing the best itinerary, not the contrary! It’s the same thing for priorities: we first need to know the objective before deciding what is the route to reach it.

Priorities are all the action items that will enable each and everyone to reach results and objectives. Therefore, the first step to prioritization for a manager is to know and understand his/her own objectives and to articulate them into his/her team’s objectives. As defining clear and effective objectives is not an easy task, don’t hesitate to read our dedicated article here.

Managers need to regularly ask themselves if their team’s efforts as well as their own are focused on making progress on the right topics.

Once objectives are clearly defined, the next step is to list and order shorter-term actions. A frequent pitfall is to limit oneself to a simple task list, a simple “to-do list”. While to-do lists are great to get things done, they do not help to take a step back or to prioritize. Let’s not blind ourselves, it’s always satisfying to check boxes on a to-do list or to see a team deliver task after task. However, managers need to go further than that and to regularly ask themselves if their team’s efforts as well as their own are focused on making progress on the right topics.

Numerous methods exist to define and prioritize actions. The Pomodoro technique, consisting in cutting down all actions in 25 minutes tasks, or the Eat the frog technique, starting with the most difficult tasks, come to mind. In our opinion, simple and efficient methodologies always work best. For example, the Eisenhower matrix, named after the 34th US President, helps to classify tasks along two criteria, is it important and/or urgent:

Managers and teams need to sync up continuously to stay aligned and keep clear of all risks of misalignment and misunderstanding.

Now that we have an efficient matrix to prioritize actions linked to all of our objectives, the most important thing is to make these priorities live. This means following these priorities (ideally on a weekly basis) and to have conversations about these with your team. Priorities can and must change according to the activity, clients, projects, etc. Managers and teams need to sync up continuously to stay aligned and keep clear of all risks of misalignment and misunderstanding.

Managers who track their team’s priorities will not only have an aligned and efficient team but will also better understand their daily activities. For example, a high number of priorities for a given team member can indicate a heavy workload or a lack of prioritization. If members of your team keep working on the same priorities week after week, they may be facing a roadblock or lack resources. Therefore, managers have all to gain to keep up with their teams’ priorities.
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