I was a master juggler. As a working single mom, there wasn’t a day when I didn’t have to manage my time wisely. Deadlines at work, kids after school activities and pick ups, dinner on the table. You all get it. It’s a common theme that professional women with young children deal with each day.
It can be chaotic. And for me, until I learned to manage my priorities, I was in constant motion and not able to focus well on any one thing for a sustained period of time. It affected my performance both at home and at work, not to mention my mental health and my relationship with my children.
But managing my priorities saved the day! And as I write in this piece today, I realized that managing priorities isn’t just a nice-to-have skill. It’s a survival strategy as well as a competitive advantage. Done well, it improves performance, protects mental health, and frees up the cognitive space needed to learn and use tools like AI that can amplify your impact.
Why prioritizing matters
Prioritization isn’t just about a to-do list. It’s about deliberately choosing where to direct your attention and energy so your highest-impact work gets done. Decades of management thinking and modern behavioral research agree that focused, intentional work produces better outcomes than busy, reactive work. Harvard Business Review and other researchers show that scheduling and isolating important tasks and carving out more uninterrupted time for them leads to higher quality results and less time wasted switching contexts.
The human cost of not prioritizing is clear in burnout data. National surveys show women report higher stress and burnout rates than men, and many workers say they are operating “at or beyond workload capacity.” Burnout drains energy, diminishes decision-making, and erodes long-term performance. Prioritizing is prevention. American Psychological Association+1
Finally, the arrival of generative AI gives ambitious women an unprecedented opportunity if they use it strategically. Industry analyses estimate that generative AI can lift productivity across functions and free up time previously eaten by repetitive tasks. But the lift only happens when leaders pair technology with clear priorities: automate the low-value work, double down on the high-impact tasks that require judgment, and protect time for deep focus.
Read the full article on Substack.com
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