Growth Performance

Prioritisation Style Audit

Assess your approach to prioritisation across four dimensions: urgency versus importance, strategic clarity, decision confidence, and focus and follow-through.

Purpose: Covey's time management matrix research shows that most people spend the majority of their working time in urgency, responding to what is pressing rather than what is important. This pattern is the single greatest driver of busyness without progress. This audit identifies where your prioritisation is strong and where urgency, reactivity, or lack of a clear system is pulling your effort away from the work that matters most.

Instructions: Rate each statement from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree) based on how consistently and accurately it describes your current practice. Rate what you actually do, not what you intend to do.

Progress0 of 20 items completed

1.Urgency vs Importance

Whether you consistently work on what matters most, or whether urgency is driving your attention more than importance. This is the foundation of effective prioritisation.

out of 25

I regularly work on tasks that matter to my longer-term goals, even when urgent requests are competing for my attention

When my task list is full, I evaluate items by their importance, not just by when they arrived or who is asking

I am comfortable letting a non-critical request wait, even when the person asking wants it immediately

At the end of most weeks, I feel I have made real progress on important work, not just cleared my inbox

I can consistently distinguish between what is genuinely urgent and what merely feels urgent

2.Strategic Clarity

How clearly you have defined what matters and how well your daily choices reflect those priorities. Without clarity on what is important, urgency fills the gap.

out of 25

I know my top three priorities for the current week before Monday begins

I can explain how my daily tasks connect to my broader goals or team objectives

When new requests arrive, I can quickly assess where they sit relative to my current priorities

I make deliberate choices about what I will not work on, not just what I will

I review and reorder my priorities regularly rather than just adding to an ever-growing list

3.Decision Confidence

Your ability to make clear priority decisions quickly and to communicate and defend them. Indecision and reactivity are as costly as the wrong choice.

out of 25

I make priority decisions quickly and without excessive second-guessing

When I have to choose between two competing priorities, I use clear criteria rather than going with whichever feels more pressing

I communicate proactively with others when I am deprioritising their request in favour of something more important

I can defend my priority choices clearly to colleagues, managers, or stakeholders when needed

I rarely reprioritise reactively based on the last conversation I had or the last email I received

4.Focus and Follow-Through

Whether your stated priorities actually get done. The best prioritisation system fails if you cannot protect time and attention to act on it.

out of 25

Once I have identified my top priorities for the day, I protect time to actually work on them

I complete my most important task of the day before moving to secondary work

I review what I actually spent my time on each week to check it matched my stated priorities

I have a system for tracking my commitments that I trust and use consistently

I rarely end a working day having been very busy while making little progress on what matters most