How to organize and prioritize your ideas (with template)

4 min readSep 26, 2022

I have so many ideas but don’t know which ones to do first.

I hear this a lot. Both as a coach, and as a friend of many creatives.

We often attribute paralysis by analysis to overthinking and stop there. Overthinking is actually a symptom of something deeper. The root of the problem lies in the murkiness of our values. More specifically, in what we’re aiming at. Or lack thereof.

Without an aim, all your ideas are on equal level in importance. No wonder we can’t decide!

So if you have a ton of ideas and/or competing priorities and have trouble focusing your time and energy into the right ones, then hopefully what comes next will help you get unstuck and get sh*t done.

Follow Along

You can follow along using my template (no email or anything required). You can fill it out digitally, or print it out if that’s more your style. Or simply grab a pen and paper and follow the steps below.

…

Okay, ready?

Let’s go!

Step 0: Level your expectations

First, understand that your list will ALWAYS and FOREVER outweigh your capacity. That’s because imagination and envy is cheap. And effort and attention is not.

You’ll NEVER get through all of your ideas and do ALL the things you want to do.

That’s life. So let’s be wise with our time.

Step 1: Idea Dump

First, write out all your ideas in a bullet list.

Go crazy.

Don’t overthink this step.

Step 2: Calibrate your Filter

Now take a moment to think about what you want, who you want to be, and/or where you want to be. In short: Ask yourself what’s important right now?

This desire will serve as a filter for your ideas.

Step 3: Score your Ideas

Next, return to your brain dump of ideas.

Score each idea on various dimensions. My go-to set of dimensions are: Impact, Unknowns, Effort and Excitement.

I prefer a 3-point scale, but do whatever feels right for you.

Interpretation

Impact: How much distance will this idea close in your gap between your current reality and desired reality?
Unknowns: How many unanswered questions do you have regarding the starting and completion of this idea?
Effort: How much effort is needed to complete this idea?
Excitement: How excited do you feel about this idea?

Pro Tip

The more specific your idea, the easier it will be for you to score. It’s normal to go back and forth between scoring and refining your ideas.

Step 4: Narrow your selection

There’s no perfect science to assessing your scores. If you’ve never done anything like this, you may find it hard and/or unintuitive. This is normal. You don’t expect to pick up 200 lbs on your first day at the gym. This is no different.

Some Hints

Right away, you can disqualify low Impact ideas. Especially when coupled with high Effort.
Lean into ideas that are both Impactful and Exciting. These are gold. Regardless of their Unknowns and Effort. Most things worthwhile require effort and a voluntary confrontation with the unknown.

Some Arithmetic

If you’re still struggling to make sense of the noise, you can employ some basic arithmetic to help narrow your options.

Add up your Impact and Excitement scores. Then subtract the total scores of Unknowns and Effort, divided by 2.

Note: Unknown and Effort is halved because they shouldn’t outweigh Impact and Excitement. As mentioned above—and worth repeating—most things worthwhile require effort and a voluntary confrontation with the unknown.

Final thoughts

This surely won’t be the end-all method for prioritizing your ideas. Even I use handful of techniques. But as with all things we learn: Incorporate what works. Throw away what doesn’t.

There’s so much to be said about this subject, but I decided to keep things pretty simple and straightforward this time.

Hope this was helpful!

Cheers,