Reprioritization is the process of adjusting your existing priorities in response to new information, shifting demands, or emerging opportunities. It’s a crucial skill for managers, especially when navigating change or uncertainty. While letting go can be hard, especially when everything feels important, it can also prevent burnout.
When you reprioritize, you reassess conditions so you can focus on work that has the greatest impact right now, without losing sight of longer-term goals. This helps your team decide what to keep doing, adjust, or stop.
Reprioritization often brings up big decisions. Enroll in TMC’s Making Better Decisions training for practical tools and a proven framework. You’ll gain confidence and hands-on experience so you can gather high-quality input, clearly communicate, and build equity into your process.
Why is Reprioritization Important?
Reprioritization helps you respond to change effectively. Maybe you need to make room for a new strategic campaign, or manage unexpected staff turnover, or invest in mental health support for students or staff. When you reprioritize, you redirect your time and energy where it’s needed most, so you can stay focused on your biggest rocks.
Imagine you’re driving and you approach a roadblock. Do you…
- Sit and yell at the cones?
- Force your car through the block?
- Find a new route?
Reprioritization is finding that new route instead of sticking to an old plan that no longer works.
Managers: Make sure your direct reports reprioritize, too. It may not be easy for staff to approach you about adjusting workloads; they might feel the need to prove themselves or “earn” their place by just dealing with the traffic jams and roadblocks in their sphere. Research shows this is especially true for staff from marginalized communities. So, you should proactively check in about pain points and communicate that it’s okay to shift priorities. In fact, let them know you expect them to!
Use our step-by-step guide below for practical strategies to help you reprioritize.
Step 1: Clarify What You’re Running Toward
It’s natural to feel scarcity around time, energy, or resources. Reprioritization won’t fix all your budget woes or calendar crunch times, but it can help you adjust the time and energy you spend on lower-impact work. Your goal: making space to focus on what’s most important right now.
Before you shift anything, get grounded in your bigger picture. Ask yourself: what am I running toward? In other words:
- Why am I doing this work?
- What am I aiming to achieve?
- What are our stakeholders and most marginalized community members counting on us for?
- What parts of our work help us advance our mission and vision?
Step 2: Take Stock of New Circumstances
Before deciding what should stay or go, get clear on what’s new and take inventory of your original commitments.
- Identify shifting demands:
- What circumstances have changed? What new information do I have?
- Are there emerging needs, challenges, or opportunities I should make room for?
- List all tasks, projects, and goals currently in progress. Given what you know now, ask:
- Is it still timely and relevant?
- Does it still align with team/org goals?
- Will it help us advance our most important work?
Step 3: Assess Impact and Doability
The Impact-Doability Matrix is a decision-making tool you can use to set or revisit priorities.
First, reflect on whether the work has high impact.
- Will doing this work now have a significant impact on achieving my/our goals?
- Will prioritizing this work benefit our most marginalized community members or stakeholders?
Next, reflect on whether the work is doable. Balance being ambitious and realistic.
- Do I/we have the capacity (e.g., time, energy), competencies, and resources (e.g., people power, money) to do this well right now?
Then, fill out the quadrants to decide whether priorities should stay, stop, or shift.
The Impact-Doability Matrix
| Low Doability | High Doability | |
|---|---|---|
| High Impact | Either shift or stop* | Stay on your priority list |
| Low Impact | Stop | Either shift or stop |
Shifting means revising projects so that the “low” parts move higher. Can you make a project more doable by lowering the bar for success (see Step 4) or committing more resources to it? Can you turn a low-impact project into a high-impact one by changing the timeline?
Stopping means accepting that something no longer makes sense to do now, honoring the effort your team has already put in, and letting go. You can set a “stop” timeline. For example, “stop for now and revisit in 6 months” or “stop indefinitely.”
*In some cases, high-impact, low-doability projects need to stay on your priority list. See Step 8.
Step 4: Adjust the Level of Effort or Scope
Reprioritization isn’t a binary “do it or dump it” decision. When everything feels urgent and important, decide what requires a gold star (your strongest work or best efforts) and what can be good enough (solid work that hits the must-haves without going above and beyond).
This isn’t about passing off low-quality work as “good enough;” it’s about establishing the minimum bar for success so that you don’t hold yourself to an unrealistic standard. In other words, don’t let the “perfect” be the enemy of the “good.”
For example, if you’re preparing for a board meeting, “gold star” might be sharing a 10-page booklet that’s error-free and sent to a graphic designer a week before the meeting. “Good enough” would be preparing a 2-page document or deck in-house with bullet points, because you’re redirecting energy toward rapid response or an upcoming campaign.
Ask yourself:
- What truly needs “gold star” effort? Where do stakeholders need to see excellence?
- Where can “good enough” be good enough? Could a lighter-lift version of the project still be effective?
- Can I/we simplify or streamline the process while still meeting goals?
Here are some concrete ways you can strive for good enough:
- Adjust your timeline.
- Narrow the scope of work.
- Assign a different project lead.
If you’re unclear what “good enough” could look like, examine your requirements vs. preferences and traditions.
Tip: If “gold star or good enough” isn’t sticking for your team, try “go big or go balanced,” or add another level of effort with “go for gold, strive for silver, or balance for bronze.” You can also make up your own as long as your team adopts the shared language.
Step 5: Communicate with Stakeholders
More often than not, reprioritizing your work impacts others. So, plan time to communicate directly with your stakeholders by sharing your perspective and making a proposal.
First, determine what mode of decision-making you’re in.
In joint, consult, or test mode, you need to get input or approval. For example, you might renegotiate with a funder and say:
“With everything going on, we’ve been hearing from our clients/community/members that XYZ is what’s needed right now. We’re also under strain with Sam being out because their mom is sick. I know we had previously planned on doing ABC, and I’d like to check in with you about our options. What can we adjust, pause, or streamline, while still aligning with your funding priorities?
We propose that we focus on X and Y for now, and return to A and B after the crisis. How does that land?“
In persuade or tell mode, you directly communicate what needs to change. For example, you might communicate to a direct report:
“As you know, Jackie has been out and we have to make some hard choices. Right now, we’re prioritizing the new online training, which means we won’t have as much capacity for the social media campaign. Instead of a five-week campaign, we’re paring it down to two weeks. Do you have questions about how we are moving forward? What will it take to accomplish this well?”
If it feels daunting to propose changes that affect other people, it might be because you need to build the relationship. Reframe this as an opportunity to strengthen relationships by lifting up shared interests, appreciating contributions, and showing people you value their input or want to keep them informed.
Tip: Still struggling to decide? Use our Pros, Cons, Mitigations Tool for help thinking through options on your own or with stakeholders.
Step 6: Address Common Pitfalls
We get it; you spent a lot of time setting priorities in the first place. Shifting course or letting go is hard. Here are ways to avoid (or deal with) some common pitfalls when reprioritizing or navigating change:
Everything feels uncertain and you just can’t decide what to reprioritize.
First, acknowledge the uncertainty. It’s hard but possible to make decisions with limited information. Then, let go of perfectionism. Instead of waiting for clear answers, build buffer space into your project so you can adjust once you know more. Consult our Guide to Scenario Planning, a strategic process for managing unknowns.
You let go of important, ambitious goals because they don’t feel doable.
Real talk: when it comes to social change work, you may need to strive for the impossible, especially when stakes are high. Sometimes low-doability goals should stay on your priority list because they are high-impact. Discern when it makes sense for you to set your sights high and even risk failure. Find the sweet spot between being ambitious and realistic.
Everything still feels necessary. You’d rather hold on than let go.
Like we said, letting go is hard. When everything seems urgent and important to your mission, remember you’ll have the greatest impact when you do the right things well, instead of doing all the things at once. You’re not just saying “no;” you’re creating space for more high-quality “yeses.” Look for places you can celebrate the work your team has already put into the project, and then let it go.
Tip: This step-by-step guide is intended to make your life easier. If reprioritization starts to feel stressful, you may be overthinking or just overwhelmed by other pressures. Pause to acknowledge the source of your stress, then aim to make ”good enough” decisions where you can, knowing that you can revisit them later.
Reprioritization is a Cycle
In the face of crisis and uncertainty, effective reprioritization creates a culture of sustainability and prevents burnout. Make it a habit or cycle where you reassess, readjust, and realign your most important work given changing conditions.
Frameworks like “gold star or good enough” and the Impact-Doability Matrix can help you clarify what deserves your focus, while clear communication with stakeholders builds support for your new priorities.
To keep your reprioritization on track:
- Take stock of your current circumstances, including emerging needs and opportunities.
- Focus on impact over effort; some tasks require excellence, while others just need to get done.
- Consider impacts on your most marginalized community or team members.
- Communicate shifts proactively to maintain clarity and alignment.
- Regularly revisit your priorities.
The Management Center is a 501c3 organization that helps leaders working for social change build equitable, sustainable, and results-driven organizations via trainings coaching, and online resources and tools.