One of my favorite quotes about priorities comes by way of Merlin Mann:
“priorities are like arms; if you think you have more than a couple, you’re either lying or crazy.[1]”
When you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. Mann has a little more to say in terms of an explanation:
…priorities can only be observed. In my book, a priority is not simply a good idea; it’s a condition of reality that, when observed, causes you to reject every other thing in the universe — real, imagined, or prospective — in order to ensure that things related to the priority stay alive.
Even though their influence informs every decision we make on the most tactical level, thinking about priorities happens at a strategic, “why am I here?” level.[2]
This “why am I here?” level is the important one. It’s what makes important projects important—as opposed to just kind of worthy of attention. And yet, we forget those important things constantly. We take our eyes off of the prize — so to speak. But it’s easy to understand why that is.
There are really two whys at work here, and these are not completely separate whys. The higher level “why am I even doing this kind of work in the first place?” question directly informs the lower level “why am I doing this specific thing?”
That’s why it’s so damn hard to be given priorities. To really treat something as a priority is to give it a significant, prevailing existential weight. It’s the kind of weight that moves you — almost constantly. But that weight doesn’t exist for some goal unless you have run it through those two whys.
If a “priority” isn’t connected to your “why am I here?” — at least in some way — it isn’t really a priority at all. It’s a mirage. It looks like a priority, but at best it’s just an objective — vulnerable to being overshadowed by other actual priorities.
Priorities need to be internalized — meaning that you have to want whatever that priority is at a very foundational — almost visceral level. It has to be the kind of thing you think of almost automatically. It’s the kind of thing that becomes a lens through which you view every other thing you do. It has to be the thing you think about every time someone tries to get you to commit to anything else.
You might have figured out by now that priorities can’t just be put on and taken off like a suit jacket. You have to care — really really care — about X in order for X to be a priority.
Once you really care, everything tends to flow from there. And that kind of care doesn’t come from quickly writing something down on a list. It comes from putting your mind to something, and devoting the time to thinking it through. But that time you spend thinking about your priorities is among the most fruitful time you can spend doing anything.
