Make room for the work that matters.
80/20 Prioritization helps leaders identify the work that creates the most value and energy so they can make better choices about where their time goes.
Bill writes about 80/20 Prioritization in chapter 7.
Get the book →Your calendar tells a more honest story about your work than your memory does. It shows what you actually spent time on, what kept recurring, and which commitments consistently gave you energy or drained it.
80/20 Prioritization uses that record to look for patterns. Review a quarter or year of your calendar and identify the work that consistently felt energizing, useful, engaging, or high-impact, along with the work that repeatedly felt frustrating, draining, or low-value.
The goal isn’t to score every meeting or make the percentages exact. It’s to identify the conditions that tend to bring out your best work, and the ones that consistently get in the way.
Those patterns become decision criteria. They help you decide what to protect, what to reduce, delegate, redesign, or stop, and what kinds of commitments are worth making room for next.
Download the PowerPlay PDF template and open your calendar for the period you want to review. A full year gives you enough distance to see recurring patterns. A quarter works well for a faster reset.
Use the Positive and Negative columns in the template as you review your calendar week by week.
Don’t rely on memory alone. Your calendar gives you a more complete record of where your time actually went.
As you review your calendar, note the work that stands out positively. Look for moments when you felt energized, useful, engaged, challenged, or proud of your contribution.
Pay attention to the conditions around the work, not just the activity itself. Consider the type of problem, the people involved, your level of autonomy, whether you were learning, and whether you could see the impact.
You’re looking for evidence of where your best work tends to happen.
Now mark the activities and commitments that repeatedly left you frustrated, depleted, or disengaged.
Look beneath the activity itself. A meeting may be draining because it never produces a decision. A project may be difficult because ownership is unclear. A recurring responsibility may simply no longer make sense for your role.
Name what made the work costly. That’s more useful than simply labeling the activity negative.
Step back from the calendar entries and look for what keeps repeating.
Ask:
What do the positive experiences have in common?
What keeps showing up in the negative ones?
Move from specific activities to the conditions behind them. “Client workshop” is an event. “Working directly with an engaged group on a difficult problem where I can see the impact” is a pattern you can use.
The pattern matters more than the count.
Use the patterns you found to make decisions about where your time goes next.
For the positive patterns, ask:
How can I create more of these conditions?
For the negative patterns, ask:
What should I reduce, delegate, redesign, or stop?
Be specific. Protect more of the work that brings out your best, and make concrete changes to the commitments that consistently get in the way.
Your calendar should look different because of what you learned.
Watch your footing
The one-page 80/20 Prioritization PDF reference, plus weekly tools and techniques to help you lead through uncertainty — from Bill's Lead for Tomorrow newsletter.
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PowerPlays are the techniques Bill teaches in his keynotes, workshops, and executive coaching engagements with organizations across the country.
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