Lex Friedman: How to Prioritize Important Tasks

Of course you can and should weigh what’s truly the most important thing, if there’s any advantage to specific sequencing, if one thing is truly more important than another. But the cold hard reality is that sometimes there are multiple things of equal importance, and they all have to get done, and they’re all super important. When you’re faced with those situations, how are you supposed to prioritize? The answer is simple: You just pick one thing, and start working on it.

Lex is talking about business priorities, but I see this all the time in people doing creative work. They obsess over what tools to use or what workflows to set up, and it all comes at the cost of actually making things. Unless you're trying to make a business of this right away, just start making stuff, sharing it, and figure out the process later.

Your first things will kinda suck.

Your first things will not get much attention.

Your first workflows will not be optimally efficient.

None of that matters, just make something and then try to make the next thing a little better.