Your most important skill as your career advances

As your career progresses, the most important skill is prioritization. The ability to evaluate what needs your attention right now. And what can wait.

Especially if you work at a startup where you hear amazing ideas every single day. There isn't enough time in the day to execute everything.

Working harder or longer isn't the answer. Doing everything is a distraction from the most impactful work.

Prioritization is key 🔑

If you're looking for a system to get started - I am a huge fan of the ICE framework made popular by Sean Ellis many years ago. It’s dead simple and extremely helpful.

Each idea get’s evaluated by the framework below.

I = potential impact. Is the initiative likely to generate a big impact vs a neat idea that might not move the needle much?

C = your confidence the idea will work. Do you have some background information that makes you believe the initiative will be successful, or is this a guess?

E = ease of implementation. Is this a small initiative you can execute quickly or a big project that requires more resources?

I keep a backlog of growth ideas in GSheets (and encourage clients to do the same) and rank them on a 1-5 scale for ICE. Once a month, I revisit the rankings and re-prioritize my roadmap.