In our consulting work with teams at all levels—especially senior leadership—my colleagues and I have noticed teams grappling with an insidious challenge: a lack of effective prioritization. When everything is labeled a priority, nothing truly is. Employees feel crushed under the weight of competing demands and the relentless urgency to deliver on multiple fronts. Requests for prioritization stem from both a lack of focused direction and the challenge of efficiently fulfilling an overwhelming volume of work. Over time, this creates a toxic cycle of burnout, inefficiency and dissatisfaction.

The instinctive response to this issue is to streamline, reduce the number of initiatives, and focus. While this is a step in the right direction, it doesn’t fully address the problem. Prioritization isn’t just about whittling down a to-do list or ranking activities by importance and urgency on an Eisenhower Decision Matrix; it also requires reshaping how we approach work more productively.

In our work, we have found that three critical factors lie at the heart of solving prioritization challenges: tasks, tracking and trust. Addressing these dimensions holistically can start to address the root causes of feeling overwhelmed and lay the foundation for sustainable productivity. Let’s take a closer look at each.

Tasks: The problem with saying “yes” to too much

The sheer volume of tasks individuals and teams undertake is a major driver of inefficiency. Every added task compounds stress, dilutes focus and diminishes the quality of outputs. To combat this, organizations must learn to effectively “disposition” tasks—determining what should and shouldn’t be pursued. The Eisenhower Decision Matrix provides useful initial guidance on rating the relative importance and urgency of “priorities,” but leaders still struggle with how to say “No” to requests.

Based on my experience working with a wide variety of executive teams, here are what I call the four kinds of No:

• No, not at all: Some tasks simply don’t merit your attention. They might lack alignment with strategic goals, offer minimal ROI or divert resources from more impactful work. Leaders and employees alike must feel empowered to recognize and decline such tasks. These tasks fall in the low importance, low urgency quadrant.
• No, not now: Timing is everything. Even valid tasks can undermine productivity if they displace more pressing work. Sequencing tasks thoughtfully helps to prevent overcrowding a team’s bandwidth. These tasks fall in the high importance, but no-urgency quadrant.
• No, not that way: Tasks that must be done might not always require adherence to rigid or requested methods. Empowering teams to adapt and optimize how they accomplish tasks fosters both efficiency and engagement. Tasks with high importance, whether urgent or not, may be pursued more effectively in ways other than the original request, and leaders should embrace the value team members can add by improving on the “how” aspects of the ask.
• No, not me: Misalignment between tasks and individual capabilities is a frequent culprit in workplace inefficiency. Assigning tasks to the right people ensures that work is done faster, better and with greater satisfaction. Rerouting tasks to others who have more capacity, capability or for whom doing the work provides a development opportunity is a strong leadership action.

Georgetown University Professor Cal Newport, in his concept of “slow productivity,” emphasizes the importance of pursuing fewer but more meaningful tasks. According to Newport, high-quality output stems not from constant busyness, but from concentrated effort on fewer objectives. This ethos aligns with the four kinds of no by reinforcing the need to focus on the right work at the right time.

Tracking: The invisible tax of oversight

Reducing the volume of tasks alone isn’t always enough. Tracking and oversight processes—meetings, status reports, check-ins—can still bog your team down. Ironically, the tools meant to ensure progress can create extra work. Consider the typical project lifecycle. Planning sessions, update meetings, status reports and check-ins might feel indispensable, but they create an additional tax on time and energy. While these mechanisms exist to ensure accountability, they can quickly spiral into a burdensome layer of overhead. To minimize this “tracking tax,” organizations should:

• Automate where possible. Modern project management tools like Asana, Jira and Trello enable teams to automate status updates, dashboards and notifications, reducing the need for manual reporting.
• Set a meeting cadence with purpose. Meetings should be used sparingly and intentionally. Establish clear agendas, time limits and objectives for every discussion to prevent “time creep” and make meetings more productive by identifying and agreeing on next steps. One strategy to reinforce prioritization is to identify both a “to do” list and a “to don’t” list of next steps—what the group commits to doing and to stopping as follow-on actions.
• Eliminate redundant processes. When multiple layers of oversight exist, they often overlap in unproductive ways. A critical review of tracking systems can reveal opportunities to consolidate or eliminate redundant workflows.

In The Friction Project, Stanford University’s Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao explore ways to reduce the negative friction caused by bureaucratic processes. They also explore increasing positive friction to help ensure people focus on the right work in the right way. Attention to tracking through automation and process redesign involves adjusting where and why friction occurs in your organization. Reducing the burden of tracking creates more space for high-value work. However, the root of tracking overload often lies in something deeper: a lack of trust.

Trust: The foundation of effective prioritization

Ronald Reagan’s famous maxim, “Trust, but verify,” encapsulates a persistent management challenge. Leaders often struggle to trust their teams to deliver high-quality work without close supervision, leading to micromanagement. This trust deficit has profound implications. Employees who feel they are constantly being second-guessed are less likely to take initiative, experiment or invest deeply in their work. To address this, both leaders and employees must take intentional steps to build two types of trust:

Relational trust: This is the personal connection between leaders and teams, and you can build it by:

• Providing clear context for assignments;
• Being transparent about expectations and decisions; and
• Owning mistakes and encouraging feedback.

Transactional trust: This is about the mechanics of work— making sure tasks are completed reliably and on time. Build it by:

• Setting clear deliverables and timelines;
• Reducing ambiguity with open communication; and
• Recognizing and rewarding strong performance.

Trust-building is a two-way street. Leaders need to give teams autonomy, and teams need to proactively share updates and challenges. This balance reduces micromanagement and creates accountability.

Integration: The interplay of tasks, tracking and trust

Addressing any one of the three Ts in isolation will yield incremental improvements, but sustainable change requires a holistic approach. Consider the following integrated strategies:

• Start with task clarity. Begin by applying the four kinds of no to refine what work is taken on. Clarity about task priorities reduces the noise that leads to micromanagement.
• Streamline tracking mechanisms. Introduce tools and processes that automate updates, and reserve meetings for high-impact discussions. This will not only reduce the tracking tax, but also signals trust in employees’ ability to self-manage.
• Invest in trust-building. Leaders should model vulnerability, provide context for decisions and adopt a light-touch approach to supervision. At the same time, employees should actively communicate progress, anticipate needs and demonstrate reliability.

When these pieces align, something very powerful happens: teams become more focused, efficient and engaged. Prioritization stops being a struggle — and starts driving results.

Ineffective prioritization is more than just a productivity problem; it’s a cultural issue that affects and informs how organizations work and how employees feel. Overwhelmed teams are less creative, less collaborative and less engaged. Nobody wants that.

By rethinking task disposition, streamlining tracking and intentionally focusing on trust-building behaviours, leaders can create a culture of focus and autonomy. This not only enhances individual and team performance, but also positions organizations to thrive in an increasingly complex world.

As Newport reminds us, meaningful work is not about doing more, it’s about doing better. And as my own research on trust has shown, empowering employees begins with empowering leaders to trust in the processes and people around them. In the end, the path to better prioritization isn’t just about what we choose to do: it’s about how we choose to lead.

This article originally appeared in the winter 2026 issue of the Rotman Management magazine.