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The Flawed Concept of Priorities

Mark Poiesz

messy to do list

The entire concept of priorities has a huge flaw. Here's how to prioritize - the real way.


The word priority grew from latin, and it meant first - one above all.


Humans aren’t actually capable of having multiple priorities because science shows conclusively that we are terrible multi-taskers. No one does multiple things at once, they’re just switching between things rapidly, and usually with poor results.


The idea that one priority could become multiple priorities actually didn’t appear in language until this last century. I guess that’s testament to our growing lack of focus.


But you can only have one priority at a time. You can only do one thing in a moment. What one thing must happen first, so that everything else can happen? That’s how you turn an old list into a single priority. One thing, above all, at this moment.

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