This kind of question tends to inspire overthinking—an attempt to grasp that truly important thing to do.
While it’s possible for an idea of the most important thing you are to do to arrive your mind as a result of thinking, there is danger to be found at over-extending thinking in an attempt to reach it.
That inclination, to search for an idea of the most important thing to do—which you can think of as a top-to-bottom approach for thinking about doing things—stems from the belief that effective execution of tasks requires clear high-level priorities. The danger here is inaction tends to set in when priorities, as they often tend to be, are unclear.
To address these dangers of overthinking and inaction, you may be better off using what David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, calls a bottom-to-top approach for addressing what you are to select to do. Rather than wait for clear priorities to arrive, you capture immediate tasks, organize and execute them, and let clarity emerge through action rather than sole-extensive-contemplation.
You—through actions—use what you know to get to what you don’t know.
The bottom-to-top approach, however, does come with its own risk of getting you caught up in the weeds of execution, leaving room for misdirection of efforts. Mitigating this risk is crucial, and two activities are useful for doing so:
- Use of effective frameworks for focus.
- Regular reviews
- Focus
- Prioritization
Focus essentially says: zero in on what you are doing now. Prioritization says: this is what you are doing now. The latter is a decisions exercise, while the former demands an exercise of your attention.
One way to manage your attention for focus is to practice a recommendation offered by Cal Newport in his book, Deep work. Quote:
Don't take breaks from distraction. Instead take breaks from Focus.A definition for distraction is pertinent here. For the purposes of this piece, you can think about distraction as mindless engagement marked by an unconscious lack of intentionality.
The shift recommended by Cal is useful because it clarifies from what you are to take breaks. Your default mode of operation—which might now be characterized by distraction—becomes intentional focus, and breaks to entertain distractions become conscious detours.
The breaks you take are about as useful to you as the periods for focus. In fact, done right, breaks complement focus and vice versa.
Say you came upon your day. A full 24 hours to do anything you liked. Your fantasy for using the day to do absolutely nothing fades and you are met with a need to make the most of it. To meet this need, a helpful approach is to segment your waking period into 90-30 minutes cycles. 90 minutes for focus, followed by 30 minutes of a break.
One source of resistance you might face is rigidity about the boundaries of the 90-30 minutes blocks. You might feel guilt or hesitation if a focused block lasts only 45 minutes instead of 90, or if a break stretches to 45 minutes. To address this, you want to embrace flexibility in your approach. A 5-90 minutes intentional segment is more valuable than a completed 90 minutes block done mindlessly. The important thing is being deliberate about how you—as it relates to time—handle your attention.
For your attention to arrive focus you need to decide on what to place your attention. This where frameworks that reveal actions congruent to (what might now be obscure) priorities come into the matrix.
The role of the frameworks is to bring ease to providing a response to the question: what do you actually do, now?
There is no one-size-fits-all for prioritization, but these frameworks are effective:
- Today's Priorities
- Time Blocks
- Focus of the Week/Quarter/Year
- Themes.
- Value revealing question
Today's Priorities
Chances are you are under the pressure you are to complete all you are to do NOW. Follow this protocol, and feel free to adjust until it is truly effective for you.
Chances are you are under the pressure you are to complete all you are to do NOW. Follow this protocol, and feel free to adjust until it is truly effective for you.
- Bring up your in-basket and today's priorities notes.[1]
- List out all the things in your mind into your in-basket.
- On your priorities list, create three sections: "Now", "Break", and "Regular". Each section of your priorities list should have prioritization classes: 1, 2, 3, 4...
- Now: It has to be done now
- Break: Can be done during the 30-minute break block
- Regular: Tasks done every day
- In groups of 3, assign tasks listed in your basket to Priorities 1, 2, 3, 4... by copying block references of the task and placing them in a fitting priority section and class.
- P1 means: NOW NOW NOW.
- P2 means: Now now but can wait for P1.
- P3 - P∞ means: Can wait for P1 and P2
The pleasant realization you meet from using this is most things that demand to be done NOW can wait.
Time Blocks
You might be tempted to use your day's calendar as your sole prioritization tool, but the constraints of time can often reinforce resistance rather than reduce it.
For example, the number one task on your P1 list might be to work on your novel but if all you have is 9 minutes before another event—say, a meeting with your supervisor—you'll feel friction from the mismatch between priority and available time.
That’s why it’s important to maintain a separate “Today’s Priorities” list — a deliberate statement of your day's intentions, independent of time blocks. The calendar clarifies and organizes when, but the priorities clarify proximity to what holds value (the why).
Your calendar is to serve the question: For all these things demanding to be done now, when would actually be the best time to do them?
You might find yourself tempted to fit as much as possible into today's calendar. Don't fall for this temptation. Instead treat you calendar as a holder of time-blocks of tasks and events where you intend to fully show up. Be honest. Use the questions for distilling today's priorities to place task into time-blocks. Task which fail to make the cut must be carried on to tomorrow or the future.
Focus of the Week/Quarter/Year
Because some tasks require more than a day to reach completion—and because time delivers and washes away opportunities—you want a repository that allows adequate attention to be accorded such tasks. A note (or notes) holding tasks meaningfully pegged against the time they might actually require.
The further into time you go the less precision should you demand of the representations of your tasks. Here is an example of a task pegged against different timelines:
Today's Priorities
ο Minimum of 90 minute to writing blog post
Focus of the week
ο Publish 1 blog post: [Insert Title of Blog Post in Focus]
Quarterly Notes
ο Think and write about: [insert topic or theme]
2025
ο Be satisfied with my writing contributions to blog.
You'll find that the specificity of your task needs to shift with finding the right layer of time and complexity of the task. Say you wanted to publish a novel. Placing "Publish 1 novel" in focus of the week might fall to resonate because your mind has yet to see how you might go from no novel to published novel in 7 days. Better to find a layer of time far enough into the future to reflect the scale of work. For example:
Today's Priorities
ο Arrive writing-desk and write 1 sentence to developing novel
ο Call cab-man for trip to park, to hold interviews.
Focus of the week
ο Interview stranger 7 to gather thoughts on [insert theme of novelο Spend 90 minutes at desk 4 times adding words to novel
Quarterly Notes
ο Q1: First (rubbish) draft of novelο Q2: Second (less rubbish) draft novelο Q3: Give draft to trusted friendsο Q4: Complete novel with feedback updates
2025
ο Publish 1 novel: [Insert Title of Novel in Focus]
Themes.
Also, you'll find that as you project your tasks further into the future, their taxonomy begins to shift. You may have noticed the interchangeable use of actions and tasks in this piece — but as you move higher in the time horizon, it becomes more sensible to call them something closer what they might be: targets, programs, systems.
In fact, most things that matter don’t even arrive in your mind as clearly defined tasks. They come as vague urges — something you should do, ought to be, or move toward. These are best captured as themes — broad directional signals that offer focus without requiring immediate specificity. Think:
- Growth
- Productive
- Remarkable
- Career Advancement
- Author
- Health and Wealth
- Highly effective
- Order
Values Revealing Question
With all that said, in-the-moment decision making can still be very tricky. You might come upon a time block that holds prioritized tasks and not have the will, energy or power to do all that you feel you need to do—but still find your mind restless.
At such moments, give you yourself permission to do "nothing" with the condition that you list out (into your in-basket or journal) a response to...
If you had all the wisdom | time | power | energy | space | courage | intelligence | creativity | willpower | strength... what would you do?In conclusion, with a thousand and six things vying for your attention, it can be tricky to tease out the few truly worth your time, energy and focus.
You may find yourself seduced by the idea that absolute clarity on priorities is a prerequisite for meaningful action only to discover that such clarity often proves elusive, and the pursuit of it can leave periods of inaction.
On the other hand, deploying actions without anchoring them to clear, value-aligned priorities can leave you misdirecting your energy and misappropriating your other resources.
Your recourse is to adopt frameworks. Tools that bridge the gap between high-level, often abstract callings and on-the-ground actions that actually move you forward. That way, when you're met with uncertainty about what to do next, you can turn to your frameworks and see what they have to say. And often, that’s enough to get you moving again—not from confusion but from clarity shaped through intentional application of values-aligned efforts.
Thank you for reading this piece on BasicPulse. Do you have questions, suggestions or comments? Please, leave them in the comment section below. Remember to leave your email in the subscription box below to get updates straight in your inbox. Be remarkable!
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