How to Prioritize When Everything Feels Important

Prioritizing is not easy — especially when you must choose between two good alternatives

Prioritizing is not easy — especially when you must choose between two good alternatives

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Leadership is the art of making choices. Saying ‘yes’ is easy and comfortable, but what we say ‘no’ to defines our success. Great leaders know when to make sacrifices to stay focused.

Imagine taking over a tech company that’s losing money because sales are down. Will you choose to launch more products or cut the innovation pipeline by 70%?

That’s the dilemma Steve Jobs faced when he returned to Apple in 1997. The company’s sales plummeted by 30 percent during the final quarter of 1996. Apple was on the brink of failure.

Steve Jobs would turn around the company he founded, but first, he had to make some tough choices. Jobs reduced the number of Apple products by 70 percent. Among the casualties was the Newton — a favorite of former CEO John Sculley.

“Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do,” Jobs famously said. “It’s true for companies, and it’s true …