Too Many Good Ideas? How to Prioritize Without Burning Out
Recently, I spent the day with a team I absolutely love. I’ve had the chance to work with them several times, and they are a joy every single time.
We covered a lot of ground that day. And as we talked, the ideas started flowing. Good ones. Really good ones. Things they wanted to try, change, build, and fix. You could feel the energy in the room.
It would have been so easy to grab a marker and write down ten big goals to tackle right away.
But here’s the reality. They still have their jobs to do. The phones still ring. The emails still come in. The everyday work doesn’t pause just because we got excited about something new.
I Needed This Reminder Too
I’ll be honest. I’m guilty of this myself right now.
At the road commission, we’ve started digitizing our records. If you work for a municipality, you know all about retention schedules. We’re required to keep certain documents for a long time. A really long time. We are drowning in paper, to the point that it’s a little ridiculous. This project is a great one and very much needed, and new AI technology helps us keyword and organize everything. But somebody still has to set it all up. Right now, that’s me.
Then there’s Samsara, a new program we’re trialing. During our kickoff meeting, I sat there thinking, oh my gosh, this does so much. I could probably keep someone busy all day just working with its features. It’s amazing. It’s also a whole lot.
Add a couple of other big projects and then remember it’s almost the end of the year. Performance evaluations. Budgets. Year-end balancing. People, finance, and all the things.
So sometimes I need to take my own advice.
How to Prioritize Without Burning Out: Pick One
When that team started stacking up great ideas, I was on my game enough to say, “These are all amazing. Now just pick one to focus on for now.”
When you try to do everything at the same time, the chance that any of it succeeds goes down. You overwhelm yourself. You burn yourself out. And the ideas you were so excited about end up half-finished.
Nobody starts something new thinking, “I would love to do a so-so job on this.” Nobody says that. When we take something on, we want to do it well. That’s the whole point. But you can’t give your all to all the things. It’s just not possible.
"You can’t give your all to all the things. It’s just not possible."
Write It Down Where You’ll See It
I’ve written about this before, but it’s worth repeating. On the whiteboard in my office, I keep a sheet of reminders. Things like “3-5 things (per day or week),” “say no or re-direct,” “take a breath before reacting,” and “limit distractions, increase focus.”
Honestly, it’s become part of the scenery. Because it’s there all the time, I don’t really “see” it anymore. But my eyes glance at it, and my brain picks it up, sometimes consciously and sometimes not. That’s exactly the point.
When you come up with a great idea or goal, write it down and put it somewhere you can’t lose it. Because you have the great idea and the best intentions, and then life happens. You walk in the next day and there are 67 fires to put out. Then the next day happens, and the day after that. Before you know it, six months have gone by and you’ve forgotten you ever had that amazing idea.
"You have the great idea and the best intentions, and then life happens."
Make a “Not Yet” List
I pick up great ideas everywhere. At conferences. Talking with other people who do what I do, whether that’s in road commission land, public speaking land, or workshop land. I get so excited about them. And I probably lose 80 percent of them because I don’t write them down.
A “not yet” list fixes that. The other nine ideas aren’t dead. They’re parked. Keep them in a notebook, a note on your phone, or even an AI tool that can hold them for you. Then you can focus on today’s priority without the guilt of losing tomorrow’s.
Decide What You’ll Set Down
You can only do so much. If you’re going to focus on a big project, something you were spending time on before has to take a back seat.
Sometimes that means delegating part of it to someone else. Sometimes it means having an honest conversation with your team about what can wait, and making sure it’s something that won’t negatively impact the whole team or organization.
Shrink It to the Next Step
This one I learned the hard way.
About three and a half years ago, I reached out to the same company we’re using now to digitize our records. They told me to start by creating an outline, basically a digital filing cabinet for how everything should be filed. Perfect. Did that. Then they said I needed to figure out the keywords we’d want to search and filter everything by.
So I tried to do that for every filing cabinet in the entire road commission. All at once. We’re talking probably millions of documents.
And then I stopped. Completely.
When I contacted them again this year, I still had everything I’d put together. But nothing had moved forward, because trying to do it all made me do none of it.
"Trying to do it all made me do none of it."
This time, I started with permits and township files. That’s it. Do I get excited thinking, ooh, minutes can be next, and then the driver white sheets, and then this, and then that? Absolutely. And then I remind myself, nope. One or two things at a time.
Finish Before You Start
If you have a big project going on, it’s probably not a great idea to take on ten other big projects. You’ll either end up unsatisfied, feeling like you didn’t do your best at any of it, or you’ll burn out and not finish any of it.
Get to a real finish line, or at least a solid milestone, before you pull the next idea off your “not yet” list.
Your Best Ideas Deserve Your Best Effort
Great ideas are a gift. Whether you lead a team, a household, a committee, or just your own goals, the trick is protecting them long enough to bring them to life.
Pick one. Write it down. Park the rest. Make room. Take the next small step. Then finish it.
What’s the one idea you’re going to focus on right now? I’d love to hear about it.
As always, carry social kindness with you everywhere you go. The world needs you and your positive mindset!
Connect With Me
If you want to consult on training or coaching for your team, please reach out.
269-621-5282
Comments