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Prioritizing for Productivity

There are (at least) three levels of priority. Let’s call them Life Goal Level Priority, Project Level Priority, and Action Level Priority.

Action Level Priority

Action Level contains the actions for a 25-minute Pomodoro session. No one else is needed. Nothing is blocking you from working on them.

Priority is about ordering the day to do the highest priority actions first. Action Level can also include sending emails or Slack messages to ask for other people to do things. It can consist of having a conversation (or a meeting) to get everyone to have the same view of what you’re doing.

To be productive, Ivy Lea says, each day, write down six actions to do the next day in priority order. The next day, work on the first action and nothing else until completion. Then start the second, down the list.

If you can’t do one of the actions in a single sitting, you’ve probably got something that belongs to a higher level.

How you order items at this level is based on the priority of the next level up. What you put on this list is limited to actions that move you toward completing higher-level items.