Everything Is Prioritization
I’m not good at this.
I don’t mean writing (how dare you). I mean prioritizing. Saying no. Picking one thing and seeing it through without getting distracted by a shiny new tab or an “urgent” Slack message that turns out to be a request for a slightly different font weight.
So I’m choosing to prioritize writing this down not because I’ve nailed it, but because maybe if I say it out loud, I might get a bit better at it.
Also, there’s something else I’m meant to be doing right now. So. Here we are.
This aint some great revelation. I’m not cracking the code. I’m not telling you to wake up at 4am sleep under your desk to win. I’m just stating the obvious: everything is prioritization. You already know it. You just forget.
We forget because it’s easier to believe we “didn’t have time” or “it was too hard” than to admit we chose something else. But one of those stories puts you back in control. The other burns you out.
You’re not bad at time management.
You didn’t forget to update the ticket. You chose to reply to Slack instead. You didn’t run out of time to write the strategy doc. You prioritized fixing a bug because someone messaged you with “😱” and you got the dread.
That’s fine. But let’s not pretend you’re at the mercy of some external force. You’re not. You’re making decisions, constantly. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. But still decisions.
Cos everything is prioritization.
We like to think it’s a process step. Something you do on Monday, maybe with sticky notes and a coffee. But real prioritization happens at 4:12pm, when you’ve got 28 tabs open, three half-finished docs, and someone’s asking for “quick feedback” on a Notion page that is, and I cannot stress this enough, not short.
That’s the real game. What do you say yes to right now? What do you defer into oblivion?
Every decision is a trade-off
You’re always saying yes to something. The only question is: do you know what you’re saying no to?
Say yes to helping out with a last-minute quick fix? Great. You’ve deprioritized your other work. Ship a risky fix at 5:48pm on a Friday? You’ve prioritized chaos. Godspeed.
Remote work can help, if you let it.
Remote work, when it’s done well, with clear expectations, asynchronous space, and actual trust can be a gift to your priorities.
You’re not getting hijacked every five minutes by “got a sec?” conversations. You’re not trapped in meetings just because you’re in the building. You actually have a chance to ask, what should I do today? And sometimes, you even get to do it.
But remote work only helps if you let it. That means blocking out time, closing Slack, and resisting the urge to answer instantly.
If you’re remote and still feel frazzled, you’re not doing remote wrong. You’re just prioritizing availability over impact. That’s fixable.
Bubble sort is brilliant and so are you
I love bubble sort. The first algorithm you learn in computer science and the first of many times you’ll be told you’re an idiot for even considering it.
Not because it’s clever, obvs, but because it’s honest. It doesn’t try to outsmart anything. It just makes little swaps: “Is this better than that? No? Carry on.”
That’s how most of us actually work. We’re not executing some flawless strategic plan. We’re just bubbling through the day, one decision at a time.
Should I finish the doc or reply to this email? Should I rewrite the plan or pretend it’s still fine? Should I open Figma again or go for a walk and doom scroll LinkedIn?
We’re all bubble sorting.
Strategy
Want to sound like you’ve got a strategy? Just say:
“We’re focusing on X because it unlocks Y. That means we’re not doing A, B, or C - even though they look shiny and one of them has design in Figma.”
There you go. Strategy.
The hard part isn’t choosing. It’s sticking to it when someone says, “Can we just sneak this one thing in?” and you feel this week’s cycle start to flicker.
The best teams aren’t full of geniuses. They’re full of people who keep their focus and say “no” without having a breakdown.
Everything else is scaffolding
OKRs? Prioritization.
Sprint planning? Prioritization.
Daily standups, Jira boards, dashboards, alignment docs, whatever your team’s version of sync is, it’s all just ways of trying to get people to agree on what matters right now and what doesn’t.
If you’re drowning in context-switching, trying to do 14 things at once, and finishing none of them, it’s probably not your tooling. It’s that your priorities are fuzzy, and the fuzz is winning.
So say no, and be clear about what you’re saying no to. Bubble away.