It's 11 pm. You've got an assignment due in four days, a reading list you've been avoiding for two weeks, and a message from a friend you still haven't replied to.
All of it feels like it can't wait, and that feeling is real. But feeling urgent and actually being urgent aren't always the same thing – especially if your brain doesn't sort urgency the way other people's seem to.
That's exactly why “just prioritise" is easier said than done.
The problem with “just prioritise"
Working out what to do first isn't one skill. It's holding several deadlines in mind at once, weighing something that hasn't happened yet against something that feels pressing now, and trusting your judgement enough to act on it.
For a lot of us, one or more of those steps works differently. A deadline three weeks away doesn't feel real until it's suddenly not three weeks away anymore. A message from a friend and an assignment due tomorrow can feel exactly as urgent as each other. And once you've picked what to do first, second-guessing it can undo the effort it took to get there.
This is executive function at work, not a lack of effort or care.
What kind of task-tackler are you?
Some people eat the frog – do the worst, most dreaded thing first, so everything after feels easier.
Others do the exact opposite and eat the cake – do the most enjoyable or easiest task first to start the day positively and build momentum.
Apparently, tasks are meant to be eaten, so there’s also eating the elephant – breaking everything down into pieces so small that starting stops feeling like the obstacle.
Some go by the Eisenhower Matrix – sorting tasks by urgency and importance into a simple grid. It's the most widely taught method out there, and a genuine improvement on a flat list – though it still asks you to judge urgency and importance, which is exactly the hard part when you're already overwhelmed.
(It also assumes you've got someone to delegate stuff to, and to be honest, if you've got an assistant to hand, that's probably going to beat all these options.)
If one of these already works for you, keep doing it.
Prioritisation is personal
We asked ourselves that same question at Booost. It revealed just how differently we all do it.
Some sort tasks by deadline, others by dread, by number, by mood, by cost of delay, or by how much capacity they've got.
One person writes a neat list – until it gets messy, so they write another. And another. Until it all descends into panic and Post-it notes.
Someone (who should probably stay anonymous) admitted they ignore everything and wait to see what they get chased for, saying “it’s amazing how many things get resolved on their own if you let them…”
My own approach isn't exactly ideal. I treat almost everything like it's urgent, then burn out trying to do it all at once.
We'd already moved away from High, Medium, Low in the app – they sound simple, but ask you to judge how important something feels, which is exactly the bit a lot of us struggle with. So what to replace them with?
Now, Next, Later. Must, Could, Should. Critical, Important, Optional. Some sounded too rigid, some too soft, a few like nothing a real person would actually say.
One person on the team pointed out that “should" feels loaded – like a guilt trip, especially if your brain already resists being told what to do. Another that “could” is too easy to dismiss. I could do it, but will I? There are lots of things on to-do lists that never get done, so maybe naming them upfront removes the guilt.
We didn't all agree easily. But we agreed on the idea behind categorising tasks: urgency and importance aren't the same thing, and mixing them up is often why everything feels equally pressing.
Consequence over urgency
A more useful question than “how important does this feel right now?" is: “what actually happens if I don't do this today”? Most students we asked agreed – they'd rather think in terms of consequence than urgency.
An assignment with a real deadline? Something breaks if you skip it.
A reading list with no deadline attached yet? Nothing breaks today – but it still matters.
A message from a friend? It might feel urgent, but nothing's actually riding on replying in the next hour.
Same three things on your list. Very different answers once you ask what's really at stake, rather than how demanding each one feels.
Test the theory
Next time your list feels like everything's on fire, try sorting it by consequence instead of feeling:
What actually has a deadline or a real cost if I miss it?
What matters, but has some flexibility in when it happens?
What would genuinely be fine if it waited?
We ended up calling our categories Must, Will, Might, but the labels were never really the point – it's giving yourself a real question to answer, instead of a feeling to guess at.