The meaning of the word ‘priority’ was consistent for centuries — until World War II. During that time, so many contracts carried an A1 priority rating that the U.S. government had to invent A1A, then A1B, then AA. The system collapsed under the weight of its own labels, as the “top priority” became “priorities”. If three things on your list are flagged “urgent” right now, you know how that ends.

Moah and Cameron Henneke have been arguing about prioritization since Boomerang acquired GQueues in 2024. Cameron built GQueues, a task and project management system where every task carries a number, because he believes everything should be ranked. Moah started advocating to switch those numbers off since the week she got access — she works in piles; either something is a priority or it is not. In this episode, they dig into what the research says about prioritization, including a Nobel laureate’s case for “good enough,” the one situation where they agree ranking is worth the time, and why AI may have them reconsidering their stances altogether. Who comes out on top in the debate about “priority” vs. “priorities”? Listen to find out!

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Links from the show!

Ambidextrous organizations https://hbr.org/2004/04/the-ambidextrous-organization

Nobel winners more likely to be perfomers/into arts https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Arts-Foster-Scientific-Success-OCR.pdf

3M Post it notes origin https://www.invent.org/blog/inventors/art-fry-post-it-notes

Fuji Film vs Kodak https://d3.harvard.edu/platform-rctom/submission/fujifilm-surviving-the-digital-revolution-in-photography-through-diversification-into-cosmetics/index.html

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