THE PRIORITIZATION MATRIX
All of the projects and activities on your plate have value — some impact they are ideally making for the company. This can be seriously quantitative (like active users gained) or softer (more positive sentiment on Twitter, for example). They also all have a likelihood of success. Some will yield easier wins. Others will be hard won. Using this attributes, you can plot all your projects on this two-by-two matrix:
This is a framework executives at LinkedIn used all the time, and now, as Saxena puts it, “Everything in my life revolves around this.” And it’s true, she even uses it to help her kids decide which activities they want to participate in (you can’t play music and lacrosse and do debate and journalism). She turns to it regularly to decide how to handle various tasks ahead of her.
Quadrant 1: Tough important stuff, requiring creative strategic thinking (where you as a leader should spend your time).
Quadrant 2: High yield, more straightforward projects. This is your home run quadrant. You can outsource this stuff to your highest performers as stretch goals that will be super empowering when they work out.
Quadrant 3: Low value, low likelihood of success. This stuff should get nixed. Maybe it’s a meeting you don’t need to have, or emails that don’t merit a reply, a coffee meeting with someone less relevant to you or the company. When you’re busy, it’s the first to go.
Quadrant 4: Low value, high likelihood of success. These are your housekeeping tasks. Activities in this quadrant might be best delegated or done at the end of the day.
