Are Your Priorities Not Getting Attention Due to Scope Creep?
During a coaching session this week, one participant made a connection he hadn’t noticed before. Staying aligned with priorities is no different from managing the scope of a project. We know all about scope creep in project management, but we don’t tend to relate it to our daily lives.
I found this idea so relatable that I wanted to share it with all of you. I often talk about setting priorities and boundaries and then managing them.
If we expand this thinking, we can consider our calendars as the project plan that includes all the activities and timelines we need to meet. I’m a huge proponent of having everything on your calendar—personal and professional - workouts, family events, reflection and planning time, etc. If they’re not all there, we don’t fully understand what we’ve committed to.
Let's consider our priorities as the critical ways we want to spend our time (work, family, health, community, etc.). We can easily map our calendar activities into those categories and color-code them for ease in seeing how they balance out against each other over a week, a month, or a quarter. Are they all getting the “right” level of focus based on how important of a priority they are for us?
When a new meeting invite or request for work to be performed comes in, we need to first understand how it fits into those priority categories.
If it does, we need to prioritize where it fits with all the other activities already on the calendar/work plan. I always remind people to ask what level of priority it is for the other person so we balance their needs with our needs.
If it doesn’t, the first decision is whether we should even consider it. Sometimes, the answer is yes, but sometimes, the right answer is that it’s not our priority; it’s someone else’s.
Unfortunately, the only way to be sure that we stay focused on our priorities are through these 5 steps:
Be clear on your priorities
Set boundaries to allow the focus on the priorities
Question all new activities to assess where they fit
Push back when they don’t align
Do the work
This focus on priorities and boundaries is a critical aspect of your leadership endurance strategy. If we get this wrong, our energy is being used on the “wrong” things.
Are you experiencing scope creep with your priorities? If you’re ready to change how it’s working, let’s talk about how coaching could support you.
Melissa
This is a perfect time to map out your success factors for the year.
You can download the 2025 Success Measures template with this link.