Getting things done: the NOW, NEXT, LATER framework
There’s only 24 hours a day. And as we’ve all experienced, those precious hours can quickly burn into seconds — resulting in yet another week flying by. You look back and think, did I GET THE RIGHT THINGS DONE?
Prioritization is critical to getting things done.
Whenever I get bogged down with new tasks, requests, or the like, I try to take a step back and realign myself with my goals. Should I be doing this now? as oppose to next, or a bit later? Three simple buckets, NOW, NEXT, LATER, help me combat work inefficiency and stay on track. (it’s also great for non-work related task management)
NOW
These are highest priority, they cannot wait any longer to be completed. The timeframe of ‘NOW’ can be defined by yourself. I typically define my work in 1 week sprints – everything within the now is what I need to accomplish this week. Anything after is pushed to NEXT or LATER. Try to be strict with this list, don’t just keep slotting tasks into the NOW or else you’ll never complete it and you’ll never feel accomplished.
After slotting items into the NOW bucket, you can then prioritize items in the NOW into their own goals, sub-lists, and sub-timelines.
NEXT
Second in line, these are things that didn’t quite make the NOW cut. They’re not pressing but can creep up on you and will soon be in the NOW list. Some of the tasks in this NEXT bucket might be dependent on completing specific items in the NOW bucket. Keep dependencies in mind when prioritizing. For example, if ‘release beta build’ is on your task list, you will need to define your beta tester list first before releasing the build. So the ‘release beta build’ task might go in NEXT, after ‘creating beta test list’ in the NOW.
So when you’re prioritizing you need to be able to think short term and long term, while spotting critical dependencies, constraints, and other potential bottlenecks.
LATER
The reason I love this framework is because of it’s inherent simplicity. When you’re reading this it’s like — Ahh, no shit. But in our day-to-day work/life balance sometimes it’s hard to take a step back and truly prioritize for efficiency.
You should have an idea by now what the LATER bucket is for. It’s the items that you’re aware of and know you need to eventually tackle, but they might be a P4 or P5 (on a scale of 0–5). They don’t deserve your effort now or next up, but they will sometime in the future. You’re listing them out because they too have importance and will one day be a NEXT pipeline.
Someone recently asked me, how often should I go through a prioritization exercise? My honest answer is that it really depends on you and how well you currently prioritize your tasks. If you struggle to reach work efficiency and rarely prioritize, I would block out a time every Monday morning where you look at your week ahead and prioritize what you need to get done NOW (this week), next week, and in the future (LATER). To build the habit, maybe revisit this list every other day as your tasks and daily work changes.
What works best for me does not work best for everyone, I suggest modifying this framework to suite you best!
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Follow me on twitter and sign up for early access to something secret I’m building 🤫 — ProductHub.ai
