How to prioritise workload
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I took a full two-week break at Christmas. I did not check emails or even think about any work. Instead I spent time with the family and even snuck in a cheeky last minute trip to France. It was great to really switch off completely. But it also meant that the first day back at my desk came with a feeling of overwhelm. I just didn’t know where to start.
Luckily after a quiet December, I am already fully booked this month. Regular clients needed me for more news shifts than normal, I was commissioned for three big features before Christmas and I have a couple of ideas I want to pitch. I’m organising a conference, FFJ co-founder Lily Canter and I have a book coming out that requires some planning, I have a ton of admin to sort and there’s the usual FFJ resources to provide for you all.
My plan had been to simply sit down with a cup of tea at 9am on the Monday morning and carefully map out what would need doing, and when. Before the break I had spent three hours on a massive clear out of my office so I was coming back to a calm and inviting space. What could go wrong? Well, the snow came, the kids schools were shut and I didn’t even sit at my computer until 11am by which time I was even more overwhelmed.
I needed a way to prioritise what needed doing when and where to focus my attention. This is something I’m not very good at. I’m very easily distracted by emails, new ideas and commissions, ignoring the fact that the work is piling up and then finding myself juggling too much. So in the spirit of new year resolutions, I decided to investigate some strategies that might help me be more efficient and better understand what to do when.
This is what I found:
1. The Eisenhower Matrix
This is a task management technique that helps you categorise tasks into four quadrants based on urgency and importance. So rather than a list of jobs to plough through you’re working out an order and focusing your attention where it is most needed.
Urgent and important: Do these immediately.
Important but not urgent: Schedule them for later.
Urgent but not important: Delegate these tasks if possible.
Neither urgent nor important: Eliminate or defer these tasks.
I can see the value of this. But there was nothing that was particularly ‘urgent’. I’m not a doctor working out which patients I need to see first. I started out by filling in a spreadsheet of the work I had on that month and the dates or deadlines. The most pressing task on Monday was to go through my inbox, reply to a couple of emails, to reread some commission briefs so I knew what I was doing. I also added some small admin tasks to my list so I would feel productive.
2. Set clear (SMART) goals
Another option would be to set a goal for the day and to organise the tasks around that.
Break down your workload into specific, measurable goals.
Use the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) to clarify your objectives.
Regularly review these goals to ensure alignment with broader priorities.
For example, for a feature with a deadline in a couple of weeks, I could contact three experts to set up interviews, start a document for notes and a list of questions I need to answer. This in theory would stop me doing too many things at once and getting nowhere. Achieving an outcome rather than just ticking a list. This actually works quite well but doesn’t take into account the fact that in journalism, things don’t necessarily work to the timetable you want them to in terms of people getting back to you. It also doesn’t solve the problem of new queries coming in that have to be dealt with. It’s a little too rigid. But it has made me consider what I put on that list of jobs.
3. Apply the 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle)
This technique is all about working smarter and focusing on the tasks that help you the most. It requires you to:
Identify the 20% of tasks that generate 80% of your results.
Prioritise these high-value tasks over low-impact activities.
Regularly assess which tasks provide the greatest return on investment.
In general I don’t think this works for me at all. I’m rarely doing things that don’t provide value (with perhaps the exception of social media). I do already think about hours spent compared with rate for the job so I don’t think this adds anything for me.
4. Time block your schedule
Now this is interesting. I had already considered doing more of this. In the past I had considered this approach to be too restrictive. But I think I do need to block out time to concentrate on one thing at once. I’m not yet at the stage of using apps or tools to help me do this, but if I’m say hunting out a case study or doing some research my plan is to ‘only’ focus on that. It may mean turning off email and other notifications for that period. I think this will be particularly helpful for avoiding procrastination.
Allocate specific chunks of time for your most important tasks, ensuring uninterrupted focus.
Use tools like calendars or task management apps to structure your day effectively.
Group similar tasks together (eg, answering emails) to avoid context switching.
FFJ friend and freelancer Sally Howard is taking this one step further and is trialling using AI to make a schedule for her based on what she has on and other commitments.
“My plan for 2025 is to be less reactive, eg, to receive an email from an editor floating a commission and to agree to this even though my month is stacked. What I now do is prompt ChatGPT to make a schedule for me based on a number of deeply written and lightly written articles around other commitments such as talks, tax returns and book writing.
“It creates a schedule for me, crucially with overspill days, and saves this detail and I can then prompt it with questions such as: when can I next fit in a deeply researched article?”
She has promised to update us later in the year on how it’s going. It has also got me wondering if there are other tasks I can delegate to automation?
5. Review and adjust daily
This was the final tip I found, which is essentially to be fairly flexible with whatever system you use.
Start each day with a brief planning session to reassess priorities.
End your day by reviewing progress and planning for tomorrow.
Be flexible: Adjust your priorities as new information or tasks arise.
Taking parts of all the advice above, I have looked at my commissions for the month and worked out a weekly plan with time blocks for the most important tasks, setting realistic goals of what can be done in a day, and including a separate list of less important admin tasks that would be great to tick off if there’s spare time. But crucially I will review day by day to ensure I’m on track and not creating even more overwhelm.
The fact this newsletter arrived in your inbox shows two days in, it’s working! We would love to hear more about the strategies you use to prioritise work in busy times. How do you factor in longer term plans or projects? Get in touch and let us know.
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Triumph of the week
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That feeling when
You need more information about a press release but the PR has gone AWOL
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Bye for now!
