The Best Prioritization Techniques to Boost Your Productivity

Workplace tasks can pile up quickly, especially when you’re leading a team or organization. Whether you’re juggling deadlines, meetings, or long to-do lists, the right prioritization techniques help you focus on what matters most. This guide details the most effective frameworks to help you focus and reduce stress, no matter your role or workload.

The Importance of Prioritization Techniques

Great leaders don't waste time and energy chasing everything at once — they zero in on what matters now. But without a straightforward method for evaluating what to do next, getting stuck in reactive mode is easy. You may find yourself jumping between tasks, missing key deadlines, and burning out your team. 

A well-defined prioritization system helps you make faster decisions and ensures that your time and energy go to the highest-impact work. For product managers, founders, and team leads, structured models separate busy days from truly productive ones.

Top 8 prioritization techniques

When your workload's out of control, task prioritization techniques define what comes first, what can wait, and what doesn't belong on your plate. Whether you’re managing personal to-dos or leading a team, these eight prioritizing tools can help you cut through the noise.

1. MoSCoW Method

The MoSCoW method divides tasks into the following categories: 

• Must-have: A project’s core functions.
• Should-have: Additions that would benefit the final product but won’t affect essential requirements.
• Could-have: Initiatives that would be nice to include but would be fine to leave out.
• Won't-have: Tasks that aren’t a high priority for this project or timeframe. 

The method's clarity gives teams and stakeholders a shared understanding of non-negotiables. It also boosts efficiency: A 2024 Carnegie Mellon study found that teams assigning about 60% of effort to "must-have" items consistently delivered core features, even when timelines doubled. 

Still, the MoSCoW prioritization falls short when too many items are labeled "must-haves." In those cases, rank priority tasks by measurable criteria like cost and time requirements to decide where they fit into the plan.

2. Eisenhower Matrix

Also known as the Urgent-Important Matrix, the Eisenhower Matrix is a solid prioritization system for daily decision-making. It splits tasks into four quadrants: Urgent, not urgent, important, and not important. Here’s how those sections overlap:

• Do: These tasks are urgent and important, so prioritize them.
• Schedule: Items in this category are important but low urgency. Allocate time at a later date to complete them.
• Delegate: Ask someone else to complete urgent but unimportant tasks.
• Delete: Remove these items from your to-do list, as they’re not urgent or important.

Although this matrix helps leaders understand their tasks at a glance, it’s not free from downsides. It can oversimplify things and is typically better for quick decisions rather than detailed strategic planning.

3. RICE Method

Microsoft considers RICE "an effective framework for decision-making," particularly among product developers. The RICE method turns gut feelings about a project into a more concrete outline. Here’s how it works:

• Reach: Estimate how many people your idea or product will connect with during a specific timeline. Say you’re launching a new grammar-checking tool, and you think 1,000 people will try your demo in the first month. Your reach number would be 1,000.
• Impact: Decide how much this project will affect customers. The scale runs from massive to minimal impact — anything below medium impact likely isn’t worth prioritizing.
• Confidence: Rank how sure you are that your estimates are correct. It runs on a scale of 0–100%. The more data you have to back up your previous guesses, the higher this score should be.
• Effort: Outline the necessary resources to complete the project, including labor, time, and materials. 

Even though this framework helps project managers understand how they feel about a project, it’s not the most scientific method. Most values are based on best guesses, which may not reflect a project's true importance.

4. ABCDE Method

Productivity expert Brian Tracy developed the ABCDE method, which helps strategically organize to-do lists. Under this task prioritization system:

• A tasks are urgent and prioritized, falling into subcategories like A1, A2, and A3.
• B tasks only carry minor consequences.
• C tasks have no consequences.
• D tasks can be delegated.
• E tasks can be eliminated.

But the ABCDE method can fall short in complex situations. When teams work on connected projects, this framework doesn’t show how tasks depend on each other or how to manage overlapping priorities.

5. Scrum Prioritization

Scrum is a popular framework that breaks work into short, time-boxed sprint cycles — typically one to four weeks long. During each sprint, teams meet regularly to plan, review progress, and adjust prioritized tasks. The key benefit of Scrum is its adaptability: With frequent check-ins, teams detect and adjust to changing goals, keeping work focused and flexible. 

But this system relies on full team engagement. If team members skip meetings and don’t collaborate well, it's harder to track progress and plan accurately.

6. Value vs. Effort Matrix

The value versus effort matrix is a simple visual tool. It plots tasks or features against their perceived benefit and required effort. With it, teams can quickly identify high-impact, low-effort "quick wins" and decide which projects will be a bigger undertaking.

However, this matrix is better suited as a snapshot than a long-term strategy, as it may focus too much on quick wins and push aside important but complex work.

7. Weighted Scoring

Weighted scoring is a way to compare projects or tasks by assigning values to specific criteria, like return on investment and alignment with strategy. You score each item based on its importance, and the total value should add up to 100. For instance:

• Return on investment: 50%
• Integration ability: 25%
• Alignment with strategy: 25%

In this example, more effort would go toward making money than connecting with existing systems. 

This method is useful when teams need to make calls with limited resources. It forces clearer conversations about what matters.

On the flipside, this framework takes effort to set up and maintain. And the output won't be helpful if teams use outdated or contradictory inputs.

8. Eat the Frog

Eat the Frog is a personal productivity method. The name refers to tackling your most daunting or essential task first thing in the morning. Cognitive science research supports that morning focus tends to be strongest, especially as people age, and jumping into high-impact work sets a productive tone for the day.

The downside is that this method is more of a mindset shift than a team-level solution. 

How to Know What Prioritization Method Is Right for You

Of these prioritization examples, the best method depends on your goals, team, and responsibilities. 

If you’re working alone and need to stay focused, simple methods like ABCDE or Eat the Frog can work well. For cross-functional teams, structured approaches like RICE or Weighted Scoring provide more clarity. Agile teams often use Scrum or value versus effort to keep up with fast-paced work.

Consider blending techniques if your priorities shift frequently or you manage multiple stakeholders.

How can an Athena Assistant help you?

Even the best task prioritization system breaks down when you don’t have an assistant. Athena Assistants have access to thorough training, ongoing skill-building, and support from a personal coach, so they’re always up to date on business norms. They don’t just take things off your plate — Athena Assistants think ahead, build systems, and help you delegate at scale. 

Here’s how our assistants can support your prioritization needs: 

• Creating new frameworks: Tell the assistant what your business is struggling with and what your goals are. They can identify which framework suits your needs best (or develop one custom to your brand).
• Handling delegated tasks: Many of these techniques rely on delegating tasks. Give yourself time to do more by assigning duties to an Athena Assistant.
• Managing your schedule and system: Keeping track of your calendar and prioritization model takes effort. Let an assistant compile this information for you and get a concise to-do list at the start of each day.

Having an Athena Assistant clarifies your priorities and protects your time.

Get Started With an Athena Assistant

Our high-end assistants are the hidden superpower behind elite founders, top investors, and world-class leaders, so you're in good company. Learn how Athena Assistants support your time management goals.

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