In the last article in this series, I provided six dimensions of how we can characterize a high-priority task. In this article, we’re going to look at this through a different lens.

Let’s face it, knowing that something is strategically important, timely, or impactful matters, but it’s not the whole picture. If it were, I wouldn’t have written a whole book on the topic. The fact of the matter is, we’re simply not getting enough impactful, timely, and worthy-of-priority work done. That’s what I explore in much greater detail in Priority is Action. With this in mind, let’s reframe our definition of priority:

• Priority isn’t eloquently spoken or carefully written words.

• Priority isn’t an intricate flowchart or an expressive illustration.

• Priority isn’t a detailed rank-ordered, weight-averaged list.

• Priority isn’t what we wish to do or hope others will do with us or for us.

• Priority is action.

There, I said it. If we don’t do it, it’s not really a priority. 

Anyone can simply say something is important, but priority is about more than that. Remember the quote from Gandhi at the beginning of the book: actions express priority.

This also means that prioritization doesn’t just mean putting something at the top of a list somewhere or giving it a high score in your prioritization framework. Prioritization consists of three parts, with identifying the priority is only the first component. 

The three parts are defined as follows:

• Component 1: Prioritization, where we rank several items according to an arbitrary framework or scoring system, whether formalized or ad hoc. 

• Component 2: Decision, where we build on our decision to make something a priority and create a plan of action.

• Component 3: Action, where we actually do the thing we prioritized! Sounds simple, but you may be surprised how often this part is skipped. Actually, you’re probably not very surprised, are you?

In the book, we take a deeper look at these three components and expand our definition of priority along the way. We also look at examples of how to tackle each of these three components. Remember, there isn’t a single right way to do this. The biggest takeaway is that you need all three components for success. After all, prioritization without action is nothing.