Tasks before heading out
Everyday annoyance as a product manager is to see wrong priority thats affect your efficiency
Let me set the scene: we’re about to leave for a friend gathering. We’re already running tight on time, so every second counts. My mental list is simple: change, grab essentials, head out the door. Just as I finish getting ready, I look over, and my partner is... tidying up the doorstep and turning on the essential oil diffuser. No jacket on, no socks, definitely not ready to leave. We’re now looking at a minimum of another 1–2 minutes delay.
Prioritising is core to what I do. So, when I see my partner focusing on something that’s clearly not the top priority (at least to me), I can feel the PM in me bristle. I’ve learned a few lessons in the process that I’ll share, but I’m still working on getting my partner on board with my prioritisation framework.
Here’s the breakdown of my frustration—and next week we will talk a little bit on what I’ve learned about influencing someone else’s priorities.
My Priority Framework: Impact, Effort, Urgency, and Reversibility
I usually categorise tasks by a few key criteria:
🌟Impact: What’s the value or outcome of this task? Will it make a meaningful difference right now?
🛠️Effort: Is this a quick win or a time-intensive project?
⌛️Urgency: How critical is it that this task happens now?
🔄Reversibility: Can this be fixed easily if done wrong??
When I apply this to the pre-departure doorstep cleaning, it breaks down like this:
🌟Impact: Yes, having a tidy doorstep and a fresh-smelling entryway is nice. It’s actually one of those “feels good” things after a long day. But in the grand scheme, does it impact our night out or our prompt arrival? Not really.
🛠️Effort: This is a small to medium-effort task—quick, but not instant. We’re talking 1–2 minutes of fiddling with the diffuser, picking up stray items, arranging shoes. In a crunch for time, that’s 1–2 minutes we could be out the door.
⌛️Urgency: Here’s where we really part ways. The urgency is essentially nonexistent. This can totally wait until we get back. Our friends will still be at dinner. The doorway will still be there.
🔄Reversibility: It’s fully reversible! No one will mind if we don’t get to the diffuser right now. And even if we didn’t clean the doorstep until tomorrow, we’d survive. In PM terms, I’d call this a “low-priority, low-urgency” task.
In short, this just doesn’t make the cut for a pre-departure task—at least, in my PM-minded eyes. But clearly, this wasn’t so obvious to my partner.
Next week: The Real-Life PM Challenge of Influencing Someone Else’s Priorities
One of the most valuable lessons in product management is that priorities differ by perspective, and there’s often a need to influence without alienating. We need to get team members (or in this case, partners) aligned without steamrolling their own sense of what matters.
Do you have a tips on influencing your partner team members’ priorities? Please tell me! I am begging for help.
Now imagine having to influence kids to prioritize putting on their shoes when you want to leave for their school run 🤯