How to Prioritize Projects When Everything Feels Urgent

You open your laptop and boom, five Slack pings, three “ASAP” emails, a new urgent request from your boss, and a task you were supposed to finish yesterday. Oh, and that Notion doc blinking in the background? Yeah, that was due too.

Welcome to the chaos zone, where everything feels like a priority — and nothing actually gets done.

So how do you cut through the noise and figure out what to tackle first?

Here’s what I’ve been trying (and still figuring out):

1. Urgent ≠ Important
I’ve started asking: Does this actually move the needle?
If it’s loud but doesn’t create real impact, it might be noise. Urgency is emotional — importance is strategic.

2. Who’s screaming, and why?
Sometimes it’s not about the task — it’s about who is asking.
Is it a client deadline? A team blocker? Or just someone panicking without all the info? Understanding context helps sort true urgency from reactive chaos.

3. Rank by impact + deadline
I try to rate each task with two scores:

  • Impact (1–5): How much it matters
  • Urgency (1–5): How soon it’s needed
    Then I start with anything that’s a 5/5. The rest waits.

4. Communicate, a lot
Letting your team or manager know what you’re working on helps align expectations. Most people are more flexible than we assume — as long as they’re in the loop.

5. Protect some deep focus time
Even in fire-fighting mode, I try to block at least an hour to actually think and do meaningful work. Otherwise, I just end up doing half-finished things all day and feeling stressed about it.

That’s my messy-but-honest take.

How do you deal when everything feels equally urgent?
Any tricks for managing chaos without burning out?

Let’s swap survival tips.

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three “ASAP” emails lol i feel this

i have a weekly piece of paper that i write priority tasks on by hand with helps me stay sane

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Loved this. Especially the “urgency is emotional, importance is strategic” line — that hit hard.

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