Work exclusively on the top-of-stack item until…
Maintain a priority stack of three to five items maximum, working exclusively on the top item until it completes or genuinely blocks, then rotating to the next unblocked item rather than distributing attention across the full list.
When This Fires
- When managing daily or weekly work across multiple priorities
- When you feel scattered across too many priorities — reduce to 3-5 and serialize
- When important projects aren't advancing despite "working on them" — parallel distribution is likely the cause
- Complements Draw the line after item 3 — peak attention hours go above… (top-3 peak allocation) with the serial execution model
Common Failure Mode
Parallel distribution across the full list: "I'll make progress on all 8 priorities each week." Result: 8 items each receiving 5 hours of fragmented attention, none receiving the concentrated 15-hour block that would produce a breakthrough. Serial model: item #1 gets 15 hours until complete, then item #2 gets 15 hours. Same total time, dramatically different results per item.
The Protocol
(1) Maintain a visible stack of 3-5 priority items, ranked by importance. (2) Work exclusively on item #1 until it completes or genuinely blocks. "Genuinely blocks" means: external dependency you cannot resolve, information that hasn't arrived, or a required collaboration partner who's unavailable. (3) When blocked on #1 → rotate to the highest unblocked item. When the block resolves → return to #1. (4) When item #1 completes → item #2 becomes the new #1. Add a new item at the bottom if appropriate. (5) Never work on a lower item when a higher item is unblocked. The stack order IS your attention allocation plan.