How to prioritise the easy way

What is the best thing that you could be doing right now, out of all the options you know about? Which task earns the right for your time and attention to give you the biggest payoff?

It’s tough, but here’s a fun solution. I call it “Winner Stays On”. Think of it like the TV show Countdown. Where the winner of the show gets to come back again the next day, and the loser goes home. If they win again they keep coming back. When they eventually lose, they go home and there’s a new winner.

For choosing the right task to do now, my game works similarly but does lead to an ultimate champion.

Here’s what you do. Write all your potential tasks on individual post-it notes. Don't put them in any order Then just pick the two at the top of the pile and compare them. Then ask yourself, if you could only do one of these at this moment, which would it be.

Keep the winning post-it in your hand, and put the loser in a new pile. Now pick then next post-it from the unprioritised pile and compare it with the winner of the previous round. Choose a winner from these two post-its and place the loser in the "loser pile". Keep going until you've gone through all your tasks until you are left with the clear winner, it being the best task to do next.

It’s easier to make decisions by comparing two things than comparing a large list of items. It's going to be easier for your working memory. Whilst it may take longer to get to the decision, the quality of the decision should be better. You'll discover the task that you hope will give you the biggest payoff from doing first.

I also did a fun 2-minute video on this using my record collection. It’s here on YouTube on my Well Productive channel.