You’re Not Bad at Prioritizing; You’re Just Prioritizing the Wrong Things

👋 Hey friends,

This one’s for the PMs who are drowning in Jira tickets, juggling too many "top priorities," and feeling like they’re somehow behind.

I used to think I was bad at prioritization.

Turns out, I just didn’t have a system for saying no.
This week’s issue is all about how I finally built one, and what happened when I didn’t.

🙋‍♀️ The Rookie Mistake I Kept Making

When I first became a PM, I thought prioritization meant juggling inputs.
Talk to stakeholders. Score every ticket. Build a pretty matrix. Rank and stack.

I thought that was the JTBD.

But every quarter, the same thing happened:

• I overcommitted.

• I said yes to too much.

• I tried to please every team, and disappointed them all in slow motion.

At some point, a mentor told me something I’ve never forgotten:

That clicked.

🧱 What Happens When You Prioritize Everything

Last quarter, we had three “#1 priorities.”
Each one felt critical. But we weren’t ruthless enough to call the winner.

That indecision created a chain reaction:

• Design got bottlenecked trying to support all three

• Eng didn’t get mocks early enough to start on time

• We shipped something, but not the thing that mattered most

We didn’t launch any of our highest impact items.
Not because the team moved slowly, but because I hadn’t done the hard part: choosing what not to do.

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💥 The Problem Isn’t Idea Quality

Here’s the trap no one warns you about:

Most of your ideas will be good.
But if you try to chase all of them, your product will stall, not because your strategy is weak, but because your execution is scattered.

I keep this mantra in mind whenever I'm torn between 5 good directions:

That’s the real game:
Cutting what’s good to make space for what’s essential.

🧰 The Filter I Use Now

When I’m staring at a messy roadmap or a stack of conflicting asks, I run every item through this:

1. What happens if we don’t do this for 3 months?
→ If nothing breaks, it’s probably not a priority.

2. Who will feel the pain the most?
→ If the answer is “everyone a little,” that’s code for “no one enough.”

Then I give each item a Priority Score:

• 🚨 High = Major risk, major blocker, trust-breaker

• ⚠️ Medium = Some friction, but there’s a workaround

• 💤 Low = Annoying, but not meaningful

This isn’t a fancy framework.
It’s just a gut-check. A way to stop pretending everything is equal.

💬 The Hard Part Isn’t the Framework

It’s not that PMs don’t know how to prioritize.
It’s that we don’t want to feel like we’re letting people down.

But every “yes” costs you something:
Your team’s energy. Your customer’s trust. Your own credibility.

So here’s your reminder:

You’re not choosing tasks. You’re choosing consequences. The great PMs just choose them on purpose.

Thanks for making it to the end. I know prioritization isn’t the flashiest topic but it’s one of the quietest ways we build trust as PMs.

When we get clear on what matters (and what doesn’t), we make space for our teams to do their best work, and for our customers to actually feel it.

Here’s to making harder decisions… and better products.

See you next Friday,
– Stef

• 📬 Forward this to a PM who’s juggling too many #1s.

• 🧠 What’s your prioritization muscle look like these days? Hit reply and let me know.

PS: I almost didn’t send this issue because I thought it was “too obvious.” But maybe that’s the point, the hardest part of prioritization is remembering to actually do it. If this one resonated, hit reply. I’d love to hear what you’re choosing to let go of.