One-minute prioritization: Using AI to rank your tasks
What if AI could shoulder the load of prioritizing your work? A prompt to rank your task list in under 60 seconds (or re-rank at the drop of a hat).
What does your to-do list look like? Is it stickies? A notebook? Asana or Trello or Excel or OneNote or Notion or Monday? If you say memory, move along.
If you’re not good at staying on top of your tasks, you’re probably using multiple of the above solutions to cobble priorities, with a lot more cobbling and less prioritizing. And when that’s the case, are we truly prioritizing at all?
If you are great at staying on top of your tasks, it’s because:
you maintain a pretty clean list
you stay on top of how things weigh against each other
you revisit and update it frequently
The funny thing about that list is the more you do number three, the more you’ll be doing of one and two. The more frequently you revisit the easier it is to cut through the noise. But…
It takes time to save time.
Key Takeaways:
Given a list of your tasks and how you want to prioritize them, you can get a prioritized task list in seconds.
Use the provided prompt to apply your prioritization framework of choice (such as the Eisenhower Matrix, the LNO framework and the RICE model)
Using AI to prioritize saves time and allows you to prioritize more often, keeping your priorities agile
AI’s unspoken potential for time management
When I look for places where AI can go into my workflow, one of the things I look for is the frequency of the task. The more frequently I use it, the more I gain from saving five minutes.
There’s a mental load to comparing one task versus the other and deciding what to delete, what to push, or what to delegate. So much so that prioritizing can occur weekly or bi-weekly at best.
Imagine providing your list of tasks and the rules for prioritizing them, and having a ranked to-do list in seconds. Remember how we talked about categorizing any list of info with AI? It uses a similar theory, and in doing so AI takes on the mental lift (read: tedium) of rating priorities.
For example, let’s say you use the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize. You feed your task list into an AI-powered prompt, specify a prioritization framework—Eisenhower Matrix, LNO, or RICE—and within moments, you get a list.
First, your list of tasks
I keep a list of my medium-to-large tasks in a light Google Sheet. At the moment, they are:
Launch AI Artistry consulting income stream
Build Website: AI Artistry Consulting
Query literary agents for my novel
Add a portfolio page to my personal website
Write some critiques of other writers' work
Set up paid Substack subscriptions for premium content
Plan and schedule regular twitter content
Wherever your tasks are kept, you can paste them directly into the below task prioritization prompt.
When I look for places where AI can go into my workflow, one of the things I look for is the frequency of the task. The more frequently I use it, the more I gain from saving five minutes.
Prompt: Task prioritization
One well-crafted prompt can boost your prioritization process, personalizing a set of priorities based on:
Your tasks: Everything you’re juggling, it can be the small stuff to the high-stakes.
Your rules or framework: The method or rules you’d like your tasks to be sorted by.
Note: You can optionally incorporate personal values or professional goals to hone the output even more, but we’ll cover that later on.
Your task list will be the first thing you add into the prompt outline. Place your series of tasks in the section between “-- Task List START --” and “-- Task List END --”.
I want you to help me prioritize a list of tasks based on a specific prioritization framework. Your instructions are:
1. Review the provided list of tasks.
2. Apply the specified prioritization framework to categorize or rank the tasks.
3. Organize the output into clear categories or ranks as per the framework.
Please structure your output by:
* Providing the prioritized tasks in the specified format (e.g., quadrants, numerical rankings, or groups).
* For each task, including a brief explanation of why it was categorized as such based on the framework.
The goal is to give me a clear, actionable order or categorization of my tasks aligned with the provided rules.
-- Task List START --
[Insert up to 50 tasks here]
-- Task List END --
-- Prioritization Framework Rules START --
[Insert the rules and structure of your prioritization framework here]
-- Prioritization Framework Rules END --Supplying your prioritization rules for your prompt
The magic is in the rules you provide (and the flexibility that comes with having the choice to use multiple frameworks).
There are of course, any number of ways to prioritize your work. For the sake of the tutorial I’ve developed the framework rules for a few popular methods (click the links to fast forward):
Prioritization rules are the second thing you’ll copy into the prompt outline. Paste the rules into the prompt in the section between “-- Prioritization Rules START --” and “-- Prioritization Rules END -- ”.
Let’s start with the rules for our first prioritization method: the Eisenhower Matrix.
Eisenhower matrix
The Eisenhower matrix, inspired by but not directly taken from President Dwight Eisenhower, divides tasks into four quadrants. Everything is based on urgency and importance.
Do Now (urgent/important) – Handle immediately.
Schedule (not urgent/important)– Plan for later.
Delegate (urgent/not important) – Assign to someone else.
Eliminate (not urgent/not important) – Throw it in the circular file.
To apply the Eisenhower Matrix to your task list, include the following prioritization rules in your prompt:
-- Prioritization Rules START --
Place each task into ONLY one of the following categories:
* Do (urgent and important): Tasks at the core of my job. Things I'm hired to do and which have an upcoming deadline. These are my most important tasks.
* Decide (not urgent but important): These tasks are core to my job and goals, but their deadline is much further out. I'll decide if I have the time to advance them, but only after I've finished more urgent tasks.
* Delegate (urgent but not important): These tasks have a deadline but aren’t core to my job responsibilities. If I can, I'll delegate these tasks to someone else. If not, I won't spend a lot of time on them, and if I find myself running out of time, I'll move to the Delete quadrant when possible.
* Delete (neither urgent nor important): Tasks that are just crowding out my desk space and causing me to not be able to focus on what really matters. Delete, and don’t look back.
-- Prioritization Rules END --LNO Framework (Leverage, Neutral, Overhead)
Developed by Shreya Doshi, the LNO framework emphasizes working based on the impact of your tasks:
Leverage: Tasks you need to put the most focus on, because they’re the ones where your sense of perfectionism and proficiency are solicited.
Neutral: Tasks that require you to do your job, just as you would normally do: strictly perfect. This type of task usually requires time more than abilities (being in charge of meeting notes, refining virtual workspace).
Overhead: Tasks that must be done, without really putting effort into quality. Think of it as an important task that can be done quickly, without much thinking. Just get it done, actively do a bad job.
To apply the LNO framework to your task list, include the following prioritization rules in your prompt:
-- Prioritization Rules START --
The LNO Framework classifies tasks into 3 different types:
* Leverage: Tasks I need to put the most focus on. They’re the ones where my sense of perfectionism and proficiency are solicited. This is the type of task I want to achieve in the best way possible.
* Neutral: Tasks that require me to do my job, just as I would normally do: strictly perfect. These tasks require time more than abilities (being in charge of meeting notes, refining virtual workspace). Do it with usual efficiency, so I have more time for Leverage.
* Overhead: Tasks that must be done, but without really putting effort into quality. It's fine if I end up doing a normal, OK-tier job.
-- Prioritization Rules END --RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort)
Originally a product management metric, the RICE model evaluates tasks for ROI:
Reach: Estimates the number of people or instances that will benefit from completing the task within a specific timeframe.
Impact: Assesses the potential influence the task will have, such as boosting customer satisfaction or achieving business goals.
Confidence: Evaluates how certain you are about your estimates for reach and impact, accounting for uncertainty or assumptions.
Effort: Measures the time, resources, or energy required to complete the task, typically expressed in "person-months" or similar units.
To apply the RICE model to your task list, include the following prioritization rules in your prompt:
-- Prioritization Rules START --
Evaluate tasks by scoring each of the four factors accordingly:
* Reach: The first aspect to assess is “reach”. Assess the importance of the task in the context of each project.
* Impact: Next, evaluate the “impact” of the project, which measures the magnitude of change it will bring. Consider the potential consequences and benefits, both short-term and long-term, to determine the impact score. Use a five-tiered scoring system (from massive impact to minimal impact): 3, 2, 1, .5, .25
* Confidence: The degree of certainty in your estimates. Assess how confident you are in the data and assumptions used to calculate reach and impact. For confidence, use three percentages to score confidence: 100% = high confidence, 80% = medium confidence, 50% = low confidence
* Effort: Assess the “effort” needed by quantifying the necessary resources, time, and workforce. Consider factors such as development hours, design complexity, and collaboration requirements.
-- Prioritization Rules END --**It is important to note that the RICE model is geared for larger tasks and projects, and might not be suitable for lists heavy with one-off items, like emailing someone back.
Extending this prompt further
Align tasks under core values or goals
Add a layer of personal or professional values (or goals) to your prompt. Here’s a few examples:
“My goal is to find an software engineering manager job within the next X days.”
“I’m placing my highest professional priority on growing my skills in Y area.”
“My desire is to be ruthlessly efficient and knock out all of the small tasks first.”
“I want to prioritize team-related tasks to improve my ability to collaborate with Z role and AA team.”
You might want to do one or more of these things. In any case, you can paste the below at the end of your prompt:
When prioritizing my tasks, please prioritize them to be aligned to my personal values, which I've shared below.
-- My Values START --
[Paste one or more of your specific values or goals]
-- My Values END -- Output tasks pre-formatted for import tools
Want to integrate your prioritized tasks into tracking systems? This prompt can also be adjusted to format results in a specific way (ie friendly to your other tools). Being more exacting about how you want your prioritized task list to look can shorten the time to get the tasks into Excel or any project tracking tool of choice.
As an example, Asana has its ability to import tasks as a CSV (as many tools do). Which means you can 1) refer to their specific template and 2) add one more section to your prompt to ensure your output matches.
When outputting my prioritized list of tasks, please provide them back to me and ensure your output matches my output instructions below.
-- Output Instructions START --
[Paste one or more of your specific values or goals, e.g. "Output this into one-column CSV with the heading 'Task Name'"]
-- Output Instructions END --Feed the output of this task to a scheduling prompt
In other words, take what your prioritized list (making some tweaks if needed) and make it part of a prompt that helps you to schedule out your day or your week. A strong prompt would be:
I need your help to organize my work week based on my prioritized task list. Your task is to:
* Take my prioritized list of tasks (provided below) with the most important items at the top.
* Break my work week into two-hour increments for each day, ensuring tasks are assigned in order of priority.
* Assign daily goals that reflect the most critical accomplishments for that day, aligning with the task list’s priority.
Constraints and Guidelines:
* Each workday is 8 hours long, with two-hour blocks for focused work.
* Ensure breaks between tasks where applicable (e.g., a 30-minute lunch after 4 hours).
* Spread complex or high-priority tasks over multiple sessions if necessary, but aim to finish each task before starting a new one.
* Ensure lower-priority tasks are scheduled later in the week.
-- My Task List START --
[Insert your prioritized task list here]
-- My Task List END --We can do a lot better than that, and likely will in a future post.
Bonus: Super-charging your prioritization
If you think creatively, we can approach our prioritization in ways that aren’t even close to realistic today. Things like:
Providing different versions of your goals
Our goals change. And not only that, having this prompt and taking it a step further means we can play the IF game.
What would my priorities look like IF most important goal is…?
What would my priorities look like IF X was no longer one of my goals?
Use multiple prioritization frameworks at once
Switching frameworks is as easy as copying a different set of rules. Meaning you have two versions of your prioritizing list within… fifteen seconds. But why would you want to do this?
Comparing results across different methods can be a way to fine-tune. In addition, not all task lists are completed equal. Some days you might have a lot of smaller tasks and need LNO, and other have larger tasks where RICE works better.
One (flexible) prompt, can not only save you mental energy, but make you more agile than you ever thought possible. Given an AI-minded approach, we can do so much more in much less time. Try taking this and prompt and running it with your task list daily.
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