What’s the biggest lesson I’m learning about business prioritization? You can’t lead what you can’t see clearly. You know that feeling when you’re drowning in your own to-do list? When every email feels urgent, every call feels like a crisis, and you’re bouncing from task to task like a pinball?
I was there just last week. I had notes everywhere: my daily sheet, random pages with chicken-scratch notes, voice memos and notes on my phone. Everything felt important. Everything felt like it was on fire.
But here’s what I am continuing to learn: when I finally stopped to breathe, the urgency was mostly in my head. Like 95% in my head.
The Reactive Leadership Trap
Let me paint a picture you’ll probably recognize.
It’s a normal Tuesday afternoon. Your phone pings with a “quick heads up” from an employee that they’ll be out sick and can’t find someone to cover. Before you can respond, a customer calls with an “urgent” issue. An invoice reminder hits your inbox marked “IMPORTANT.” You know they’ll be calling to talk about credit limits before the afternoon is out if you don’t get them a check.
Within 20 minutes, you’ve got three major “priorities” competing for your attention. And that’s before you even looked at the 10 things you really wanted to get done today.
Sound familiar?
Here’s the thing…small business owners get stuck in this reactive cycle because we care deeply about our businesses. We don’t want to let anyone down. We want to stay on top of everything. And everything includes the personal stuff too: commitments to family and friends, house work, projects…but when everything is urgent, nothing gets the focused attention it deserves.
My 87-Item Wake-Up Call
Last week, I found myself in exactly this spot. I had what felt like a hundred things swirling in my mind, all feeling equally important. I could physically feel the stress building because I knew I only had time for a handful of tasks, but I wanted to tackle them all.
So I did what I should have done from the start. I wrote it all down.
I gathered every scrap of paper, every phone note, every mental reminder, and dumped it all into one master list. Then I organized it: personal, professional. Real deadlines versus made-up urgency. Who was actually waiting on what versus who might be waiting.
You know what I discovered in about 45 minutes? There were eighty-seven things on my “to-do list”. Eighty-seven.
But when I really looked at deadlines, dependencies, and impact? Only four or five truly needed my attention that week. Some were just ideas for future projects and articles.
The rest? Mostly just “keeping things clean and tidy” tasks: organizing files, updating spreadsheets, clearing out my inbox. Important? Sure. Urgent? Not even close.
The Permission to Let Go
Here’s what I want you to try this week. When everything starts feeling like a priority, hit pause. Take fifteen minutes and do what I call a Priority Purge:
Step 1: Write It All Down
Everything. Don’t edit, don’t organize…just get it out of your head and onto paper (or, if you’re like me, a Google sheet).
Step 2: Ask Three Questions
For each item, ask:
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Is there a real deadline?
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Who is actually waiting on this?
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What happens if it doesn’t get done today or this week?
Step 3: Identify Your Real Priorities
Find the ones that move your business forward or prevent actual problems. Not busy work. Not perfectionism tasks. The real deal.
You’ll probably find, like I did, that most of your stress comes from false urgency and from keeping it all in your head. That “urgent” email from your vendor? It can wait until tomorrow. That desk and paperwork cleanup you’ve been meaning to do? Set yourself a 15 minute window to just knock it out so that you feel mentally AND physically lighter. But don’t let it bounce around inside your head as a “to-do”.
The Beautiful Truth About Focus & Setting Priorities In Your Business
The beautiful thing about this exercise isn’t just that it helps you with business prioritization (or just life prioritization in general). It’s that it gives you permission to let the non-urgent stuff go. At least for now.
Because here’s the truth: once you knock out those four or five real priorities, those tidy-up tasks? They get done quickly. When you’re not stressed about twenty other things, organizing your files actually becomes kind of satisfying and often takes way less time than you expected. Business prioritization doesn’t have to be stressful.
Your Challenge This Week
The next time everything feels urgent, remember…it’s probably not. Do that fifteen-minute Priority Purge. Write it down, ask those three questions, and focus on what actually matters.
You’ll be amazed how much clearer everything becomes when you’re not treating every task like an emergency.
Feeling like your operational chaos runs deeper than just business prioritization confusion?
Download my “5 Signs You’ve Outgrown Your Ops” checklist here to identify what’s really creating the friction in your business.
Looking for more? Check out Episode 2 of my Podcast “Forged in Ten”, The Power of Pausing to Zoom Out:
Photo credit to DS stories: https://www.pexels.com/photo/colored-sticky-notes-scattered-on-a-surface-6991876/