A practical take on prioritisation
I recently read a very good article by Jason Cohen of A Smart Bear called Ruthless prioritization while the dog pees on the floor. It addresses a problem we all face: there is never enough time to do everything we want or need to do.
Cohen’s central point is that time is a zero-sum game. Every choice is a trade-off.
Time is a zero-sum resource: An hour spent on one thing necessarily means not spending an hour on the entire universe of alternative things. Every minute is a choice. Every choice is a trade-off.
While there are many prioritisation frameworks out there, from the Eisenhower Matrix to RICE scoring, Cohen’s approach cuts through the complexity. He proposes a simple, practical way of thinking that forces you to identify what truly matters.
Identifying your 10x tasks
The first step is to actively seek out what Cohen calls “10x tasks”. These are activities where the return on your time is an order of magnitude greater than the effort you put in. They are the tasks that can genuinely transform your business or career.
Examples include:
- The few features that win the majority of your sales.
- Finding the marketing message that doubles your conversion rate.
- Hiring a critical employee who elevates the entire team.
- Addressing the single biggest bottleneck to your growth.
In my industry, a 10x task in data science could be developing a predictive model that automates a core business decision, freeing up hours of manual analysis each week. In modern systems engineering, it might be establishing a rigorous traceability process from the start. While it feels like overhead initially, it prevents entire teams from building features that do not map to a core stakeholder need, saving months of wasted effort down the line.
It is important to find your 10x tasks:
If you don’t know what one or two 10x tasks you should be working on, then identifying that is your highest priority.
Without this clarity, any work you do, no matter how efficient, risks being a waste of time.
Minimising the 0.1x tasks
On the other end of the spectrum are “0.1x tasks”. These are the low-impact activities, many of which are mandatory but do not provide a high return. The goal is to spend as little time on them as possible. Cohen suggests several strategies:
- Eliminate: Can you change your strategy to avoid the task completely?
- Delegate: Can someone else do it, even if not perfectly?
- Batch or Automate: Can you group similar tasks and do them all at once?
- Archive: For ideas or tickets that have sat untouched for months, accept they will likely never be done and archive them. If it is truly important, it will come back.
He makes an important distinction that effort does not equal impact. A simple task is not automatically a 0.1x task; some easy wins can have a 10x impact.
The reality of focus: letting the dog pee on the floor
Cohen uses a memorable parable to illustrate the true cost of focus. Instead of me paraphrasing, here it is directly from the article:
In a well-lit living room, a dog is peeing on the floor while a man sits in a chair, reading a book. The man doesn’t react. You’re watching from a window, concluding that this man must be ignorant, crazy, or at least a poor decision-maker. Put down the book and take that dog for a walk, idiot!
Except, you don’t know the full story. In one hour, the man has the most important meeting of his life. His performance in this meeting will dictate the next ten years of his career. Everything he needs to know to be successful in this meeting, is in that book. Yes the dog should have been taken for a walk, but the penalty of having to clean up the pee is worth it, because the call is that important.
This is what intense prioritisation looks like. You must intentionally ignore some problems to give your full attention to the 10x opportunity.
The importance of communication
This intentional neglect can destroy morale if your team only sees the “dog peeing on the floor”. They see problems being ignored and lose faith in leadership.
The solution is constant and clear communication. You must explain why certain fires are being left to burn. You need to share the full story: what the 10x task is, why it is the top priority, and explicitly acknowledge the things you are not doing as a result.
