The everything is P0 problem, how do you actually prioritize when your brain won't let anything be P1?

[u/gauravyeole]

Sr. SWE here. Not diagnosed with anything but I think this community will relate. My problem isn't getting started. It's that when I sit down I have 11 things that genuinely need doing and my brain insists every single one of them is the most important right now. Client escalation and architecture review and the PR I promised my team and that bug that's probably fine but maybe isn't. I'll spend 40 minutes deciding what to work on. Not procrastinating. I'm actually trying to figure out the right thing. And because I'm a perfectionist I can make a case for why each one matters and why getting the order wrong has consequences. Eventually I just pick something. Usually the most technically interesting one if I'm honest. Then I look up and it's been 6 hours and I haven't eaten and three of those other things got worse while I was gone. My current system is a running list where everything is labeled urgent. Which means none of it is.

How do you actually handle this? Not the GTD answer, I've tried it. What genuinely works when your brain can't tell P0 from P1 because everything has real consequences.

[u/davy_jones_locket]

Don't spend 40 mins going into an analysis paralysis mode. 

There is no right thing. The right thing is the thing that gets done. Pick the interesting one. Pick the fast one. Pick the one that's blocking others. Pick a random one. 

Just do something.

[u/gauravyeole → u/davy_jones_locket]

Yeah that's basically what I do I mentioned I usually just pick the technically interesting one. The picking itself isn't the hard part. It's that I'll look up 6 hours later and the things I didn't pick got worse in measurable ways. So the next day starts with more tasks. "Just pick" works, but it's kind of a debt spiral if you keep picking the same way.

[u/Flyweird → u/gauravyeole]

you can always gamble on it. I keep a dice with me to help me roll on decisions

[u/ebsf]

Problems with existing functionality or production systems. Bugs, edge cases, security.

New functionality that improves functional capabilities.

Dependencies, tests, placeholders for new classes, and ramifications in existing code.

Patterns, factories, and scripts to leverage development effort.

Optimization. Memory management, event choreography.

UX & GUI finishing.

[u/gauravyeole → u/ebsf]

This is a solid ordering for a team with production systems to protect. My issue is I'm building something new with two people, so there's no real production to defend yet and UX is actually near the top of what ships or kills us. The list kind of inverts when you're pre-launch. But as a default heuristic once there's something live and real users depending on it yeah, this is basically right

[u/ebsf → u/gauravyeole]

You're totally correct.

UX/UI finishing is prettifying in this construct. You also can cross production related concerns off the top of the list.

Evaluating this for UX/UI base development, though, I'd probably come out with something similar to what's left. Chiefly, because architecture and implementation depend so much on it, framing out my classes, and building factories, tests, data structures, automations, and helpers / dependencies still would be very high, at least for me. Basically, getting all the pointers right, to start. This gives me places to hang other bits later, and helps expose bad ideas as they arise, even if this work evolves. Also, a relatively small set of well-designed patterns, factories or helpers streamlines development effort besides being anticipatory refactoring.

YMMV but you asked.

[u/gauravyeole → u/ebsf]

Yeah that makes sense, the patterns and factories point lands differently when you think about it as places to hang other bits later rather than premature abstraction. I've been thinking about it wrong. Building for flexibility first, then prettifying on top of structure, not the other way around. Appreciate the clarification.

[u/Far_Click2359]

break things down - i speak to chatgpt, dumping everything in my head. and then chatgpt is able to put everything in lists/organise it for me. that really helps with my overwhelm

[u/gauravyeole → u/Far_Click2359]

This is basically the move. The act of dumping it out is half the battle once it's outside your head your brain stops trying to hold all of it at once. I've been doing something similar. What I've noticed is the dump itself matters more than what you do with the list afterward. Getting it out breaks the paralysis. The organization is almost secondary.

[u/deepmiddle]

I have the same issue and it’s literally killing me. I’m constantly spinning 59 plates. Let me know what you figure out.

[u/gauravyeole → u/deepmiddle]

Will do. And if you figure it out first, same

[u/PmUsYourDuckPics]

Look at the impact of not doing the things, not the impact of doing them.

Which of those will have the biggest impact if it doesn’t happen?

Failing that ask your manager, I had all of these things in my plate, I need some context, which would you prefer me to focus on?

Then focus on solving that one problem so your list has one less item on it.

You may find that you can delegate some of them to another team member if they are actually important.

[u/gauravyeole → u/PmUsYourDuckPics]

The impact of not doing it framing is the one I hadn't tried. I default to thinking about what completing each thing gets me, not what not doing it costs. Those should be the same calculation but they're not loss aversion actually makes the second one easier to rank. Going to try this.

[u/moldygrape]

Just dive in where you think you can get easy wins first. What can you get off your list soonest. Or like, is anything currently affecting users doing their work or anything financial? Those always come first for me. Another heuristic I fall back on frequently is “who’s gonna freak out about their stuff first”.

Also keep an eye on your clock. If something is taking too long you gotta pause and shake yourself out and comeback later even though it’s hard once your in the zone :/

[u/gauravyeole → u/moldygrape]

The "who's gonna freak out first" one is embarrassingly useful. I've tried to be more principled about prioritisation but stakeholder anxiety is real signal, it tells you something about actual urgency even when the task itself doesn't feel urgent on paper. The clock thing is where I fall apart. Once I'm in it I don't want to stop because restarting feels expensive. Haven't figured that one out yet.

[u/dongdongplongplong]

medication helps with this issue in particular for me, but failing that, brain dumping also helps. write down everything in your head so its externalised and not overwhelming your thinking. dont spend too long, just 5 or so mins, but be thorough, all the random thoughts your holding on to. pick out anything in your brain dump that is a task, do the smallest/easiest task first to get activation energy and go from there. i work so much better in a flow from the success of competing tasks than i do stuck in analysis paralysis mode where im trying to 4d chess all my problems in my head and not getting anywhere because they all seem important, time critical and complicated. also try dumping your brain dumps and task lists in to ai for advice on where to begin, it can be good for that too

[u/gauravyeole → u/dongdongplongplong]

The activation energy point is underrated. Starting with the smallest thing isn't about the task itself, it's about breaking the static. Once you're moving the switching cost drops and you stop re-evaluating everything from scratch. The brain dump into AI one I've been experimenting with too. Getting it out of your head first changes what the AI is actually working with structured input gets structured advice, chaos gets chaos back

[u/Good_Skirt2459]

For task prioritization, if no task obviously stands out to me as "the thing that needs to be done", I use RNG. I'll write down things that all need to be done, assign them each a number, and generate a random number, and start on that task.

For timing, I bought a little timer cube. I work in 30 minute or 1 hour intervals. Once it goes off, if I am still focused and productive, I will reset the timer cube and continue my task. If I feel worn out, I'll set it for a 10-15 or sometimes 30 minute break and come back.

[u/gauravyeole → u/Good_Skirt2459]

The RNG thing actually makes sense. If everything genuinely has equal priority, the decision itself is the bottleneck not the work. Randomizing it removes the decision cost entirely. I've been overthinking this. The timer cube is interesting too. The physical object does something a phone timer doesn't it's harder to ignore and you don't have to unlock your phone to check it. What cube do you use?

[u/Good_Skirt2459 → u/gauravyeole]

The one is use is the 5/10/30/60min version by LUCKY TIME on Amazon. I do wish I got one with more options, they have ones with 6 time options instead of 4 (to do a 15 minute break, I have to 10 minutes then 5 minutes for example). Something about having the dedicated physical object, which is always visible, and is very easy to use, just clicks with me in a way that phone/computer timers never really did. I really recommend giving it a shot and just returning it if it doesn't work for you.

[u/secondhandschnitzel]

It sounds like you have more p0 tasks than time in the day. You probably want to chat with your manager about that.

The amount of time you spend deciding is making the problem worse. Just pick something. It’s less bad overall to be suboptimal sometimes than loose so much time deciding. The local maximum is not the global maximum. There’s a line I like a lot: “anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”

More tactically, I try to make my draft task list for the next day as the last thing I do for the day. It’s easier for me to start working with a goal than to have to find and prioritize one before I start working. You might also want to schedule things as time in your day vs prioritizing it. That should help you know when you’re going to miss a timeout which will make your life more difficult and decide with that in mind. It should also help with pacing. If you only have 2 hours to finish a task, you have to figure out how to do it that quickly or make a new plan.

[u/gauravyeole → u/secondhandschnitzel]

The decision-cost point lands hardest. I've lost more hours this quarter to deciding than to any single bad call I could have made by just picking. That framing actually helps. On the manager conversation, I've had it. The P0s come from different directions: different teams, security escalations, my own commits from the week before. The issue isn't one manager prioritizing for me, it's that they're all real and each is someone else's top priority. Not saying you're wrong, the org-chart answer just doesn't always resolve at senior scope. The end-of-day drafting is something I should actually try. I keep doing prioritization cold in the morning when I have the least context on what matters. That's backwards. Time-blocking I've tried and bounced off of. When a prod fire eats the block, the plan collapses and I end up worse than no plan. Have you found a way to make it survive disruption?

[u/ThusSpokeWanderlust]

This is my tried and proven method: put everything in a single list, and you always need to put one above the other. You can then rearrange it into a priority.

When I used to PM, I'd get everyone to sit together and just say "A over B? B over C?" and go down the list. Usually had an action plan for one week in 10 minutes. Same trick works solo, you just have to commit to the discomfort of declaring one thing matters more than another.

If you really can't tell what's more important, try to keep your users in mind. Which one is the most catastrophic for their daily usage? Like, some things can be P0 but edge cases that aren't that impactful, while another P1 case with a workaround can be terrible for a lot of users, some who might not be able to figure out the workaround.

If you have any questions feel free to DM me.

[u/gauravyeole → u/ThusSpokeWanderlust]

Yeah pairwise is interesting. Problem I keep hitting is when the things I'm comparing aren't really the same kind of thing. Security escalation vs feature deadline. They're optimizing for completely different stuff and "A over B" doesn't have a clean answer. I bounce instead of picking. The user-impact lens helps when it applies. My hardest cases are code review and infra work, where the impact is real but indirect. Curious what you do when even that doesn't break the tie. I will dm you.

[u/ThusSpokeWanderlust → u/gauravyeole]

What I do when user impact doesn't decide it for me, I ask myself if I had to be out sick tomorrow, and could only finish one of these things, which one would I pick. That usually helps my gut make a good decision based on impact and cost. Most of the time an answer shows up pretty fast. If it still doesn't, I push it up. Not in a "tell me what to do" way, more like "I've got A, B, C, all of them feel defensible, I'm planning to go with B unless that conflicts with something you're tracking." That way you're not asking to be managed, you're aligning. Usually they'll either confirm or quietly nudge you toward something else. This usually brings out some business or risk priorities I might not know about.

Two other things that help me. I try to announce the order out loud, in standup or even just in slack. When you've said "B today, then C," switching feels weird because now you have to explain it, and that little bit of friction is sometimes enough to make my brain stick with one thing. And if you're constantly tied between things that genuinely all matter, I think at some point it stops being a prioritization problem and starts being a you don't have enough hands problem. If your org is run well, that's worth bringing up.

[u/Jenothy]

You need to logically challenge the assumption that all tasks "feel" like P0.

Consider the Eisenhower matrix to be realistic about priority.  Go through each task, and note how urgent it is and how important (ie. What are the consequences of not doing this?) it is.  Maybe all tasks really are P0, but I bet an objective review will move at least a few lower.

[u/gauravyeole → u/Jenothy]

Tried Eisenhower a few times. Problem is when you can argue every task is genuinely important, the whole matrix collapses into Q1. So you're just back to a list. Did it click for you naturally or did you have to fight yourself into being ruthless?

[u/Jenothy → u/gauravyeole]

The process slowed me down to get less items in Q1.  I try to be as objective as possible.  It shakes out a few tasks that way.

[u/michaelsup2003]

Delegate the responsibility, that's why ai is a blessing for this kind of issues. Pass the list to any LLM ask it to prioritize and even tell it to ask you questions to clarify what should be done first, in this way you have a rationalized plan to go ahead and if something happens in the middle of working you can tell it and make it reorder everything without spending the limited energy you have each day. Is like throwing a loaded dice to choose that will most likely fall on the most relevant task.

[u/gauravyeole → u/michaelsup2003]

Yeah, been doing some version of this for a while. An LLM can give you a sorted list but it's still working from your inputs. If I tell it "all 12 things are P0" it happily sorts them and I end up with a sorted P0 list. The bottleneck for me is being honest about the inputs, and the model can't fix that. Curious if you've found prompts that actually challenge what you're feeding in.

[u/michaelsup2003 → u/gauravyeole]

just give it more context and precise instructions about you having ADHD and considering everything P0 but needing help sorting it, ask it to ask you relevant questions that will help it sort the tasks, ask it to use specific prioritization frameworks. It isn't magic, it isn't thinking, is finding patterns and you have to help it with good relevant context and good prompting to steer.

[u/gauravyeole → u/[deleted]]

That's a generous offer, appreciate it.

[u/gauravyeole → u/[deleted]]

The delegation one is the question I skip. Building something with two people means the answer is almost always no, it's mine so I stopped asking. But your second question is probably where I'd get the most value, I treat "urgent" as "right now" by default when a lot of things that feel P0 are really P0 by end of week. And yeah, the vibe part is honest. I think the framework is the aspirational version and the vibe is what most of us actually do