44 How to Prioritize in 3 Easy Steps

If you’ve ever wondered how to prioritize when everything feels important, this episode breaks the process down into three clear leadership strategies you can apply immediately.

In this episode of Joyfully Unstoppable, leadership coach Becky Hamm walks through a practical framework that helps experienced leaders filter competing demands, protect their time, and focus on the work that truly matters. As leaders grow into more senior roles, the challenge shifts from doing more tasks to making smarter decisions about what deserves your time, energy, and attention.

You’ll learn how to evaluate your responsibilities and structure your week so your energy supports the work that creates the greatest impact. These simple prioritization tools can help you quiet mental noise, strengthen decision-making, and move from reactive busyness to focused leadership.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to prioritize by identifying the work that only you can do
• A simple way to evaluate tasks using importance and urgency
• The practical Ditch, Delegate, Delay, Do framework for managing your workload
•  How regular prioritization improves productivity and develops your team

If you lead a team, manage complex projects, or balance competing demands across work and life, these strategies will help you approach your responsibilities with greater clarity and confidence.

🎧 Listen now to learn how to prioritize your time and focus on the work that truly moves your leadership forward.

Subscribe to Joyfully Unstoppable for practical leadership insights designed for experienced women leaders who want sustainable success and meaningful impact.

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Transcript

0:46

Welcome to Joyfully Unstoppable, the podcast for women who are ready to succeed without the stress. I'm your host, Becky Hamm, leadership coach, speaker and founder of Women Lead Well, and I am so happy to have you here today. I've changed the intro, the old intro was boring me, so we're just gonna jump right into it. Okay. Friends today, I'm gonna give you a secret to quieting the noise in your brain so you can focus on your most important work. We're gonna talk about how to prioritize potentially when everything feels important. And this is critical for all leaders. I'm gonna argue the more senior you get, the more important it becomes because people are gonna be bringing you more problems than little tasks. However, for a lot of us, particularly women, we get to where we are sometimes by over-functioning and hustling and grinding. And so we are used to being in the weeds. We are used to carrying a really heavy load. But as we grow more senior, we really do need to shift our perspective from operations and execution to strategy and planning and visioning, and orienting the organization as a whole toward a better future. We gotta pull ourselves out of the weeds, down and in to shift up and out, and that is a fundamental change in how we think about our work. We think about our time and our energy. And it can be hard, right? A lot of us struggle with that. So that's what we're gonna talk about today, and I'm gonna give you three strategies, three approaches for doing this. I use all three because it works for me. What I would say is, if you just focus on this first one, it's super simple. If that works for you and gives you the direction and the guidance. And like the, the flexibility, the spaciousness that is better for you. Then use the first one and ignore the other two. Alright, we're just, it's choose your own adventure grown woman. You, you figure out what works best for you and do it. But let's start with approach number one. And you may have heard this, particularly if you are a senior leader, and have done any kind of executive level coaching or professional development, and that is. Do only the work that only you can do. So what do I mean? I mean, I want you to get your to-do list. I want you to get your calendar and ask yourself, is this thing something that only I can do? And if the answer is yes. Well then, okay, alright. Then it stays on the list. We got a little further refinement to do. But that's something that you would do. If it's work that only you can do, then you might actually do it. If the answer's no, somebody else could do this work, well then let go of it, delegate it to that person and let them do it. And I'll give an example. There is an individual who runs a K through 12 private school, so K through 12, well, from pre-K from like little three year olds all the way up through 12th grade, senior of high school, and he is the, the head of school and the school is organized into an elementary school, a middle school. And a high school, each school has its own principal, and then this individual is the headmaster. Well, the elementary school principal left to pursue a different opportunity, and so there's a gap right now as they are trying to hire the replacement for the elementary school principal. So the headmaster, the head of school is both the head of. The entire school with all of the fundraising responsibilities working with the board that advises and governs the, the totality of all three schools, uh, all of the accreditation that they have to maintain in order to, to have these kids graduate with high school diplomas. All of the work that comes with being ahead of school. Still doing that work and also serving as the acting principal of the elementary school with all of the management of the teachers and the schedules and all of the safety concerns that you've got when you're dealing with children. All of that two full-time jobs on this individual shoulders right now, and they're highly capable and, um, it's not a permanent solution, but, but this individual is certainly competent to do the two jobs for a certain period of time. Now I was going to meet with this individual for something, and so I called the front office at the school and said like, Hey, can you put me in touch with so-and-so's scheduler? I just need to get on their calendar. And they said, oh, no. So-and-so manages their own calendar. I was gobsmacked. Are you kidding me? You have two full-time jobs, two incredibly important full-time jobs. There is a laundry list of work that only you can do, and you're managing your own calendar. A task that literally any adult inside of the organization could do for you. No, no. So prioritization tip, approach, hack number one, ask yourself what is the work that only you can do? And be honest. No pride, no ego. Could someone else do this work? You might have to develop them to be able to do the work, right? You maybe need to do a little preparation before you delegate, but if it's work that somebody else could do. then you are gonna give that to somebody else to do so that you can focus exclusively on the work that only you can do. And again, as you grow more senior, you become the single point of failure. There is no other head of school, there is no other elementary school principal. There's a vice principal who can do some of the work. But not all of it. What is the work that only you can do? Everything else is negotiable, and I'm gonna argue again. The more senior you get, everything else goes away.'cause that list of stuff that's, that only you can do is gonna get longer because you are the one with the experience. You are the one with the insight. You are the one with the credibility because of how long you've been in the game and, and what you've accomplished. So that's number one. What is only the work that only you can do? Everything else goes away. Number two is to look at your work and ask yourself, is this task? Is this event, this action activity, whatever it is, is it important or not? This is a dichotomy. It is a yes. Or a no. You get to define what important means. Maybe it is, does it align with the strategic goals of my organization? Maybe it is, does this task move me toward my Q2 goals? Whatever. Whatever I would say you could define important. I would encourage you to define important to include. Enjoyment. Alignment with your core values, things that make you happy, that you like to do because you get to enjoy the work you do. But is it important, yes or no? And then you ask yourself a follow on question.'cause every task can be sorted, every action can be sorted as important or unimportant. Again, you gotta define important. And every task, every action can be sorted in terms of. Urgency. Is it urgent? Do I have to do it right now? This very second. Can't go grab a cup of coffee. Gotta do it now. Does it have to happen today? Does it have to happen this week, this month, this quarter, this year? Urgency is more of a sliding scale or a continuum. Now you maybe recognize this as the Eisenhower Matrix'cause it is. I'm using a principle defined by former president and and five Star General Dwight d Eisenhower, who lamented that people have a tendency to focus all their time and energy on tasks that are urgent as opposed to tasks that are important. So you ask yourself, is this task important? And if the answer is no, as you define important, don't do it. Don't do it. We'll talk in a minute about what you can do once you've made that determination, but it ain't your work to do. You my friend, focus on the important work, not the unimportant work. And then it becomes a scheduling question of when are you gonna do your important work? And then that is, is it urgent? Is it not urgent? Right? So Eisenhower Matrix. Those are the first two. Do only the work that only you can do make that decision. Is this sincerely, not my ego, but sincerely, is this work that only I can do? Or is this work someone else can do? I layer on top of that. Is this work important? Because it might be work that only I can do, but if it's not important, I still ain't doing it. I'm only gonna do the important work. so layer on top is this important? Is it not important? And then how urgent is it? And that leads us into my third approach that I use with my clients. And this is the four D framework. Ditch delegate, delay, and do. So let's walk through that framework. And again, if this is too fancy for you, you don't have to use the four D framework. You can just ask yourself that question of is it only work that only you can do? Or you can just ask yourself, is this important or not? Is it urgent or not? And you can refine that way. I just like the four Ds,'cause it gives me more comprehensive approach and it builds on those first two models. So four D framework. If a particular task, work, event, well activity, whatever. If it's not important, I don't care how urgent it is, it gets ditched. I'm not doing it and I'm not delegating it'cause I'm not giving my team on important work to do either.'cause they got enough important work on their plate. Right? So ask yourself, is it important? Yes. No. If no, it goes away. You don't give it to anyone. You potentially wanna rehearse some scripts for how you will diplomatically ditch. Right. Thank you so much. I can see how important this initiative is. I can see the value of this event you've invited me to speak at. Unfortunately, I'm unavailable to support. I look forward to hearing how it goes. I'm sure it will be a phenomenal success. Whatever. Be diplomatic, but just say no. You don't do the work. Someone sends you something, um, that isn't important to you. You do not accept it. You just don't, you don't let it in. There's, you don't give it bandwidth. It's just a no. A diplomatic no. Right. Maintain relationship. No, but a serious no. That's your ditch. So let's say the work is important by your definition of important. Then you ask yourself that first question, is this work that only I can do? And if the answer is no, if it is managing your calendar or even more important work, like, um, reaching out to potential donors, right? You've got a development team, they can do that. You can delegate the task, drafting the report. You can delegate that task to a team member. With appropriate supervision, right? You have to prepare them to receive the task. You have to prepare them to effectively execute the task, and you've gotta supervise the task as they are executing it, right? You gotta provide necessary support. So it's not that you hand it off and then you let you wipe your hands of it and you never think about it again until the deadline comes. That is not effective delegation. But we've talked in other episodes about how to delegate. I've got blog posts on it. Um, and then inside various programs, I teach people more concretely how to do it. And so I'll link the blog posts, uh, and the, the podcast episodes in the show notes for you if you want more concrete detail on how to delegate. But my point is if the work is important, but it doesn't need to be done by you. You delegate it to a team member, and the benefit of that is twofold. One, it gives you space back on your calendar and energy back in your body budget that you can then apply to something that is important, that only you can focus on, that only you can execute. And it also helps develop a member of your team as they gain the skill and how to do this work that you've given them to do. So six months from now, a year from now. I don't know, six weeks from now. It depends on the task. You're gonna have a more capable team member because you empowered them and prepared them to do this work. You get to grow them, which is an important leadership responsibility that you have, and it will mean a lot to that team member if you handle it the right way. And again, we talk about this some other places. So we've talked about Ditch. If it's not important work, it's gown, doesn't matter. You ain't doing it. You're not giving it to anyone. Delegate work that is important but is not yours exclusively to do. You do that effectively, and I'll, again, I'll link the blog posts and the, the podcast episodes that give you a little more information about how to do that. Now you're left with work that is important that only you can do. Well, this is where we start assessing urgency for those tasks or activities, events, whatever that are important that only you can do, but are not immediately time sensitive. So here I'm talking about something that you don't have to do today or this week. That's what you delay. And how do you delay? Well, you probably have some kind of project management or task management system that you use, and that might be the to-do list that you see in Google or Microsoft teams that might be Asana or Trello. Whatever system you use to manage your workflow, you wanna capture those tasks that you're delaying. You wanna give them a deadline. So is it, it's not today. It's not this week, but you wanna have it done by the end of the month, or you wanna have it done by the end of the quarter, or maybe there's a dependency. You wanna have it done before you can initiate some kind of follow on action, capture that in your project management system. And I would say further, we've talked about kind of energy flows. If you recognize the type of work that you're doing that you wanna delay, if there is a particular time of day or a time of week where that work. Is better for you to do where you know that you'll produce a higher quality product. We've talked about this on the podcast before. I do all of my deep work first thing in the morning. I do my creative work later in the evening. And if it's like a heavy lift, it's gonna be on a Monday. It ain't gonna be on a Thursday or a Friday. And so as I am scheduling in those tasks or actions that I'm gonna delay, I'm gonna schedule them. In at the time where I know that I will perform my best to do the task. Does that make sense? Yeah. And if there is a dependency where it's gotta happen by a certain date on the calendar, well then I've gotta look at where in the general area of that date on the calendar, am I gonna produce my best work? Because this work is important, right? We're not gaffing it off. We're gonna do it and we're gonna do it well, but we're gonna control the when and the how, so we show up with our best. So that's a delay. If it's not important, you ditch it. If it is important, but someone else can do it, you delegate it. If it is important, only you can do it. But it doesn't have to happen right now. Delay it, but get it scheduled.'cause you're not ditching it. You are just choosing when you're gonna do it. All that should be left on your list of tasks and events and, and calendars and activities or whatever is the work that you should be doing right now. The important work that only you can do that has a date where it needs to happen today, this week, this month. That should be all that's left. Hallelujah. Amen. Right? And so. Do it. Do it with a smile. Be happy. Bring your full self to it because you have gotten rid of all of the chaff, all of the distractions, all of the stuff that's dragging you down so you can bring your full self to the important work that only you can do. And now look when you, uh, so I would say do this triage. I do my ditch delegate delay due. I do that on the weekly. I love a Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening to get that done. But maybe it's a Friday afternoon for you. Maybe it's a Monday morning. Whenever it is, do this repeatedly. And the more you do it, the better, more confident you will get at how you do the sorting. It won't take as long and it'll become kind of instinctive in how you process new incoming demands. You can do it in real time. If stuff is coming in, you can triage. Don't have to wait for once a week. I just like to do it that way. Um. But the more you do it, the better you're gonna get at it, and you're gonna see that that do list becomes really refined and targeted on the most important activities for you to spend your time and energy that deserve your bandwidth, not that take your bandwidth, that deserve your bandwidth, it will make you more productive. It'll make you more effective, it'll make you more efficient. And because you're gonna be delegating appropriately, it's gonna grow your team in important ways. So it's all around goodness. I hope that this was helpful to you. Again, reach out, DM me, shoot me a, a comment or an email. Let me know. I always wanna be supportive of your needs and so if there's something that I've left out or you've got a question, hit me up and let me know. And if you do the ditch delegate delay, do approach, and you give yourself five hours back on your schedule, I wanna know that too,'cause it'll make me happy. Now, I hope you'll join me next week when we talk about how to be a good boss. We're gonna go back to basics and talk about what it means to be a good boss and what it means to lead your team in an effective manner. If this episode spoke to you, I would love for you to share it with a friend. We need more women leading from alignment, not adrenaline, and please don't forget to like and subscribe. And if you could leave a review, I would really, really, really appreciate it. Building those reviews on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, it really does help a little podcast like mine to gain some traction and get shown to more women who could benefit from it. As always, you can grab one of our free resources like Tame Your Inner Critic, the Weekly Reset Routine, the Mental Load Reset. All of that's available on the Women Lead Well website, and I'll link'em in the show notes below. Remember, joyful, sustainable, and authentic leadership is possible, and you deserve to enjoy every minute of it. Until next time, I'm Becky Hamm and this is joyfully Unstoppable.