Prioritization

Pixar's animated movie The Incredibles has a very interesting message to convey. In one scene, Helen Parr tells her son Dash, "Everyone's special, Dash," to which her son responds, "Which is another way of saying no one is." In another scene, the super villain Syndrome reveals that he is going to sell his inventions to everyone, so that everyone can have superpowers. He then says, "When everyone's super, no one is!" Contrast this with George Orwell's slogan from "Animal Farm," "All animals are equal; some are more equal than others."

If every task on a to-do list were of equal importance, it is impossible to decide which of them should be done next. Any arbitrary criterion used to decide and pick a task would be just that—arbitrary. All tasks cannot be special or equal. Some are, indeed, more equal than others. The priority of each task must be set apart from other so as to have a clear way of selecting one of them.

Many managers also fall into the trap of becoming one-trick...