Everybody, whether consciously or unconsciously, uses a system to prioritize what work to do at any given time. These systems range from something as simple as one where you do whatever you are most interested in at any given time to systems that take in to account many different factors.

I use productivity system called GTD, which has its own prioritization paradigm baked into it. GTD uses four factors to help you determine what to focus on at any given time:

• Context: Where you are and what tasks can be done there. (Home, Office, Car, etc.)
• Time available: Make sure you have enough time to get the task done.
• Energy available: Sometimes you just want to do tasks that are relatively mindless.
• Urgency: a numerical value of how pressing the task is.

In this system you filter down based on your context, available time, and available energy and then pick the highest urgency task.

This system works pretty well for me, but I have found it lacking one important factor: desire. There are many studies that show at work employees that are empowered produce better work. Prioritization systems that are formulaic, if followed strictly, do not allow for individuals to work on what they want to work on.

I have developed an alternative system to vanilla GTD that takes this into account and works pretty well for me. I replace urgency with two separate factors — “desire” and a “can’t wait” flag. I always work on tasks that can’t wait first and then on whatever I want to work on most.

This system is great, but obviously has a big hole — you may never work on things that can wait but you don’t really want to do. For this reason I have occasional “push through it” days, where I work on things I’m dreading. Interestingly, I have a weird sense of masochistic accomplishment at the end of these days.

I have found this system allows me to be happy and inspired on regular days and that everything gets done in its due time.