How to Prioritize What Actually Matters at Work for Yourself and Your Team

If everything feels urgent, nothing improves.

In this episode, we break down how to prioritize what actually matters at work by asking two simple questions:

Is it important?
Is it urgent?

You’ll learn how to:

• Stop reacting to every email and request
• Reduce distractions and protect deep work
• Set boundaries with your boss and team
• Avoid doing everything at 50%

We walk through real-life examples, including last-minute meetings, “quick” report requests, forgotten school lunch money, and the 23-minute refocus cost of interruptions.

Intentional prioritization isn’t about doing less. It’s about placing your energy where it actually moves the needle.

And once you learn to do this for yourself, it becomes easier to do it as a team.

—

Key Takeaways

• Not everything that feels urgent is actually important.
• Interruptions cost momentum, not just time.
• Clarity at the individual level creates clarity at the team level.

Taking Intentional Action: How to Choose the Life You Lead

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Transcript

Desiree (00:00.758)
If you've ever laid in bed thinking I was busy all day, but I don't even know what I did. And that one thing that I actually had to do is no closer to being completed than this episode is for you. We unintentionally are conditioned to feel like everything needs our attention. And if it doesn't have it, then we are dropping the ball or we're not trying hard enough. But I'm here to tell you that it's not effort. Like I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Our teams want to do good work.

They want to please their leader. They want to be valued and share what they can do. We all want that. But that's really hard when everything feels urgent and everything feels important and everything feels like it needs our attention right now. And when everything feels urgent, then nothing actually can improve. Nothing is important if everything is important. So today I want to talk to you about intentional prioritization, not just what's loud and what feels urgent and what's in front of us.

but the things that actually deserve our time and attention. And the simplest way to think about this.

Desiree (01:14.68)
So welcome back to You're the Boss, Now What? I'm your host, Desiree Petriq, and our goal here is to help you lead yourself and your team with confidence. So lean in and let's get started.

Desiree (01:27.394)
Now imagine it's Monday morning at 10 a.m. You're feeling pretty good about your to-do list. You've got the three most important things written for the day, just like all the productivity gurus tell you to do. You're about to eat the frog, get the most important thing done, and then you get an email from your team with a request to run a report. So that goes straight to the top of the list. Then at 11 a.m. you get a call from your kid's school that you forgot to drop off your kid's lunch money. And now you have...

Desiree (02:01.112)
So now that book that you were excited to read over the lunch hour has to get pushed back yet again so you can run to school and drop off the check. Right before you leave to drop off the check, you get another email from your boss asking you to attend a meeting this afternoon because it may be of interest to you and you should be there. All of a sudden, it's 5 p.m. on Monday and you didn't even start on your list, let alone complete the three things that you actually needed to do. So now you have to skip your gym time tonight to work from home so you can get caught up before it all starts again tomorrow.

I'm guessing at least a portion of this sounded familiar to you. Honestly, it's too familiar to too many people. This challenge that we all face of feeling the need to deprioritize, to get rid of things off of our list, but not actually knowing where to start, it stems from a misunderstanding. It stems from not knowing what's important and being able to set boundaries for ourselves and with others to make sure that those boundaries are being held.

So let's start at the beginning. I wanna go back to 8 a.m. on Monday morning and I want you to look at your to-do list.

Desiree (03:18.476)
So let's start at the beginning. I want you to look at your to-do list and ask yourself this question for each item. Is it important and is it urgent?

Desiree (03:40.878)
So let's start at the beginning. With everything on your to-do list, ask yourself these two questions. One, is it important? And two, is it urgent? Our tendency is to make everything seem both urgent and important. We do this for a couple of reasons. Number one is we are all people pleasers at heart. We want the person on the other end of whatever it is we're doing to be proud of us, to not be disappointed, to feel like they're important.

and so that we can make sure we're not letting anyone down. Another reason is we don't actually know the priority of the things that are crossing our to-do list. So everything keeps getting put at the top of the list, pushing the things that actually need our time and energy down. Let's go through this scenario that I gave you. It's 10 a.m., Monday morning, you get this report request from your coworker. They ask you, can you please run this report for me? And most of us,

have our email open all the time. So we get a ding, we check our email as they come in, and that request moves directly to the top of our to-do list. We would likely stop what we're doing, go run the report, email it back, and check it off of this list, and then check our email again to make sure that there isn't anything more that we need to do before going back to the thing that we were originally working on.

Desiree (05:07.338)
All of that maybe took five minutes. Took you five minutes. It was not hard. It was an easy request for you. But research shows that it takes over 23 minutes to fully refocus after an interruption. So when we're bouncing back and forth between emails and questions from our team and text messages and the inevitable checking Instagram to make sure we didn't miss anything, it's not the five minutes that we're losing.

What we're losing is up to 23 minutes of momentum that we could have had if we prioritized the thing that actually needed our attention.

Desiree (05:52.77)
So say we have our email up, we get this email from our coworker, we have to go back to these questions. We have to go back to one, is it important and is it urgent? The reality is you don't know the answer. You can assume that it's important because they wouldn't have asked you if they didn't need it, but how quickly do they need it? If we put it at the top of our to-do list and they don't actually need it until Friday, then we've just lost the momentum from what we were doing and made ourselves

anxious and thinking that this person needed it right away. If we put it at the bottom of our to-do list, which would be my general reaction, and they actually need it urgently, well, now we feel like we dropped the ball for one of our team members, even though that was the last thing we wanted to do. We would never intentionally try and cause another person stress or overwhelm. So there's a couple of lessons in this first piece of the puzzle, in this first piece of the scenario. The first one is,

Create specific times of your day that you will check your email so you're not constantly giving your attention away from.

Desiree (07:04.622)
Create specific times of your day that you'll check your email. My entire life has changed since I've done this. I typically check my email three times a day, 8 a.m., noon, and then right before the end of the day. I, like most people, like my inbox at zero. I feel accomplished, et cetera. But when I'm doing that, I'm saying, okay, I'm gonna take half an hour. I'm gonna respond to all of these messages. And if they take five minutes and that's all it took, I'm not.

pausing the momentum of something else and finishing that task and then moving on to the next one. So create specific times of your day that you can check your email. And if you feel anxious about this, like, well, my team, if they need something from me, they'll email me and then they'll think I'm ignoring them. If that makes you anxious, you can always advise your team that it's something that you're doing. And if something is truly urgent, that they should either call you or come find you.

That's something that we as bosses, as leaders can do for our team to

Desiree (08:07.394)
to show them what it looks like to really.

Desiree (08:18.946)
to show them what it looks like to actually prioritize the deep work that we don't often get a chance to work on. And then the second thing that we can learn from this is never assume how urgent something is for someone else. Respond to the request from your team with questions like, when do you need this by? Is this urgent or is it something I can get to you later? And if you truly don't have the time and someone else can run this report, it's a very specific example, but if someone else can run this report,

Hey, I'm deep into something here. Any chance you could have, I just watched.

Desiree (09:02.39)
Any chance you can have Mildred, I just watched the parent trap and that was the first name that come to mind. Ask Mildred if she can run the report for you. These are all options to make sure that we are protecting our energy and understanding the urgency of things as opposed to just assuming that they're urgent. But we've all experienced or seen the scenario where our to-do list is overflowing. We're already overwhelmed by the work that we need to do, but we put on a brave face and do what needs to get done.

And then our boss comes to us and gives us another thing to add to the list or our coworker sends us this email or we get a phone call or a text message. And we kind of break. We get to this breaking point where we now feel so overwhelmed that we bring that stress home. We're frustrated and we take it out on our spouses or our kids. Then we dread coming to work the next morning because there's no way that we can get everything done. But what if we ask the question, how urgent is this?

Where should this go on my list of priorities? It can be a question we ask ourselves, but it can also be something that we can openly ask to others. It's going to help us hold ourselves accountable and help other people hold us accountable by knowing the actual deadline of things, by knowing the actual urgency of things. So it can sound like this.

Desiree (10:34.936)
So what is setting a boundary actually look like? Our boss comes to us, gives us another project on top of what we're already doing. And we might say something like, I'm excited to take on this project, but my time is already accounted for this week. I have no additional capacity. If you need me to take on this project, is there another one on my plate that we can push the deadline for or possibly see if someone else has the capacity to take on something more? We will never know if we don't ask.

If you've been putting on a brave face and you always are the one to do everything and raise your hand, your boss might not know that you're overwhelmed. They might not have any idea that you don't have time for this additional project. We will never know if we don't ask and if we don't share our current reality with people. Ultimately, setting a boundary sounds scary, but our boundaries for ourselves and for our to-do list is going to be beneficial for everyone. It's going to keep us happy and satisfied at work. It's going to keep us from being overwhelmed and stressed.

That's going to help not only our coworkers to get better energy coming off of us, but it's also going to help when we go home in the evenings and we don't bring it with us.

Desiree (11:47.33)
So let's move on to the second part of the scenario. What about the lunch check that you forgot to drop off at the school office? This was not a random scenario. This is an actual scenario that has happened to me multiple times. I have had to ask myself, is this urgent? It's important. I need to pay for my kids' lunch. I get that. And my initial and immediate reaction when I get an email like that is, my gosh, I dropped the ball.

I can't believe I did that again, let's just be honest. And I feel immediately bad and like I need to do it right now or the whole world is gonna end. But I have conditioned myself to respond and ask, can I drop it off tomorrow? This doesn't happen over and over and over again. This is a specific scenario, a specific moment in time, but I wanna give you an understanding of what it can look like. Can you respond and say, can I drop the check off tomorrow?

Is my kid going to get to eat today if they don't have that check? If the office says, no, your kid will have to eat a sack lunch today if they don't get that check, that would turn it into urgent. But I can almost guarantee that they'll say, yes, drop it off tomorrow. Not a problem. It just went from continuing to be important, but it is no longer urgent. And now you can do it tomorrow. I know it feels like we're letting someone down. We don't want anyone to view us as incompetent or inconsiderate.

So we want to rectify the situation right away. I get that. I felt it. But again, the reality is, is that it's not as important as we're making it out to be. It's likely not as urgent as we're making it out to be. And it would be just fine to do it the next day or after school. We have to ask the right questions, not only internally, but to other people to make sure we understand the priority.

Desiree (13:41.496)
So let's say she says, your kid won't get to eat today if you don't drop off this check. If we.

Desiree (13:56.984)
So let's just assume that we get the message from the school. We see that a check needs to be dropped off. We just assume that it's urgent and we say, okay, I'm going to drive to the school and drop off this check during lunch. Even though I was going to read a book during lunch, I was really excited to decompress for a few minutes and now I don't get to do that. That activity could be seen as neither urgent nor important. I get that, but.

I would argue to say that the things that constantly keep getting pushed off of our to-do lists are the things that would help rejuvenate us for the work that is actually urgent and important. So make sure that there is time to read the book or take the bath or get your work out and go to lunch with a friend, et cetera. Those things may never get top billing on your priority list, but they definitely shouldn't be on the bottom either. Those are the things that are going to give you the energy to show up and do the work well.

Desiree (15:00.91)
Okay, so now what do we do about the meeting that our boss invited us to last minute? It's urgent because of the timeline. It's this afternoon, there is a timeline on it, it's not something we can change. But let me ask you, is it important? Again, we don't know the answer. It might be really important that you're there because only you have the information that they need. But unless we ask, unless we say to our boss,

Desiree (15:32.238)
Again, we don't know the answer to that unless we ask. But most of us put on this calm, cool, collected exterior, and that's what our boss sees. And then we think, why?

Desiree (15:50.764)
And they think, why not come and have them sit in? They might learn something. This could be a good learning experience for them. But unless we ask them if our attendance is important and needed and share the consequences of giving up that one to two hours to attend the meeting and what it would mean for our to-do list and our priority list and our mental health, we don't know if it's important or not. We don't know if we actually need to be there or not. And we're not able to make the decision of whether or not we want to give up that time. If we want to put that

at the top of our priority list simply because it was urgent. We have to be willing to ask the questions. I know it all sounds easier said than done, but I was speaking to a group of high school entrepreneurs a couple of weeks ago and I had them write down everything that's on their to-do list right now. I asked them schools, sports, family, their businesses that they're all creating. And I asked them to circle the most important thing that would move the needle for them in their business.

in their schooling, in their life, and I asked them to cross out the things that just make them feel busy. They looked at me like a deer in the headlights. They're like, how do you even begin to decide what's important or not? Multiple said everything is important and there isn't enough time in the day. I don't know what to do. I'm not sleeping because there's so much on my to-do list. I'm not spending as much time with friends because et cetera, et cetera. And...

I sat there for a moment and I was debating, do I give some tough love or do I just be super overly kind? But ultimately the tough love was the thing that I thought would make the difference in that moment. And so I responded by asking them which social media platform was their favorite. And they said all the regulars, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, et cetera. And I laughed pretty hard when one of them said Tinder. He was a little too close to the microphone. But then I asked them how long they spend.

on those apps every day. How much time would they get back if they only spent half of that per day? How much easier would things get if social media was not at the top of the priority list, but if something like sleep was at the top of the priority list and they had less brain fog and better concentration and more energy throughout the day? You could see the wheels turning on this thing that we say, what makes you feel busy, what feels important.

Desiree (18:17.036)
Like we need to be spending time where other people spend time. But in reality, it's not giving us the kind of rejuvenation that something else would, like sleep or movement or reading a book or spending time with actual friends in real life. And.

Desiree (18:41.996)
And that's not just a question for students. That is not just a question. Honestly, it's a question for everyone. How much time are you spending on those things that make you feel busy, that make you think that you don't have enough time? Intentionally prioritizing our days and our lists is not a matter of deciding to do something and not to do something. We can do a little bit of everything. It's just making sure that our energy and our attention is being placed on the right things so that we can move forward

and continue to make progress without feeling like we're drowning 99 % of the time. So whether it's students, employees, parents, leaders, et cetera, we don't even

Desiree (19:36.398)
We don't ever want to feel like we're dropping the ball or letting someone down or not doing enough or not living up to our potential. It's why we take it upon ourselves to do so much and to never say no and to take on what we know we don't have the capacity for because it just feels too hard to say no. But I wonder, is it better to say no to protect your time and energy for the things that are truly important or is it better

to take on more than you can handle and do everything at 50 % as opposed to the 100 % that you're capable of if you had enough time and space and capacity in your calendar to give your all. Intentionally prioritizing the things that are going to move us forward means letting go and deprioritizing of some of the things that are holding us back. And quite honestly, they're not likely that important in the grand scheme of things.

When I have a video game on my phone, a game of any sort, I get obsessed. I want to play it all the time. You will not find a game on my phone right now. There is no social media on my phone right now because that was a decision to deprioritize the things that feel important, even though they're not, to prioritize the things that actually need to get done. It doesn't mean I can't still do them. I can still go on my computer and play

Sims if I want to kill an hour, I can still go on my computer and scroll Instagram if I want, but I'm deprioritizing it by taking it off of what feels urgent and making it something that I do when I want it to feel important. It takes intentionality. It takes a willingness to set boundaries and to ask questions, and it takes self-awareness to know how we're feeling and how to overcome the discomfort of asking those questions.

and to turning off the game or the social media or to saying no to a coworker or maybe even to a boss. But at the end of the day, if we can slow down long enough to decide what truly matters, then that urgency that we constantly feel, that fire that we need to put out, it loses its grip on us. We stop drowning. We start leading with more energy, which is going to pass on to our coworkers. We're going to set a really good example for what it means to prioritize the things that are important.

Desiree (22:00.63)
and progress is gonna become possible again. We're gonna start to feel like we're actually moving the needle. So once you learn to do this for yourself, it becomes much easier to do with a team. You start asking better questions, which projects truly deserve our attention right now? How many meetings do we actually need? Is this deadline fixed or is it flexible based on our priorities? And when we as individuals can get better at this prioritization,

our team will automatically get better. Our team will get clearer because we're learning to ask the right questions. So if you can learn to protect your energy and prioritize your own to-do list, you're going to start to see how that clarity can affect your team in a positive way and the goals that you're trying to reach together. That's how intentional prioritization scales to your team. So next time something new crosses your desk, ask yourself, is it important and is it urgent?

and then place it where it belongs to fit your priorities. Because not everything that asks for your attention deserves your energy. You get to decide. You get to choose where it belongs.

I hope this episode inspired you to take another look at your to-do list. And until next time, just remember that leadership is a privilege, but it's also a really big responsibility. And you're the boss now. So what are you going to do with it?