Hi Reader,

How many times have you felt overwhelmed because you were juggling multiple priorities?

Sometimes, we feel like multiple priorities are imposed on us—either by a boss, a manager, or just life in general. Everything seems to be vying for that number one spot at the same time.

Other times, these priorities are things we impose on ourselves. We feel there are numerous things we must do and do as soon as possible.

To borrow language from the Eisenhower Matrix: what do you do when everything feels important and urgent?

The first thing is to get real about a simple fact:

A priority is something that, by definition, takes precedence above all other things. It is, singularly, the most important thing.

Let’s say you feel like your boss has imposed a new priority onto you that takes your plate from full to overflowing. It’s actually your job to make him or her aware of this issue. They likely don’t remember all of the projects you’re juggling or that you might have a conflicting priority.

There’s a tactful way to bring this to their attention. You might say something like:

“I’d certainly be happy to take this on. For some context, here is what’s currently on my plate and my top priority. For me to take on this new initiative, I’d need to downgrade my current priority and drop one of these other five things I’m doing. Which of these would you be okay with me dropping?”

This respects their position and gives them a sense of autonomy while also making it clear you’re only able to keep one thing in the “priority” position.

When you work for yourself, or you’re in a leadership position, it can be difficult to remember not to impose multiple priorities. Because unless you catch the problem yourself, only those under your leadership who are brave enough to point out the issue can make you aware (and not everyone will feel comfortable doing so).

As a result of trying to juggle multiple priorities, you (and your team), end up feeling scrambled, rushed, and overloaded all of the time. Things get done but at the expense of burnout and quality, and it’s only a matter of time before things fall apart.

Does this mean you can’t ever do multiple things at the same time? Well no, but you have to earn the right to do so by setting things up sustainably.

What has to be true in order to have “multiple priorities”?

You need systems & teams to manage each initiative.

I’ll give you a personal example:

I decided this year to make writing my next book my priority. But I also want to continue publishing my newsletter and podcast every week.

The reason I can do all three is because I have systems and teams for each.

We worked last year to put a solid flywheel in place for my newsletter, so no matter what, a new issue goes out each week. We’ve also been putting a flywheel in place for my podcast, though that one’s still coming together. But we are getting close.

For my book, I’m working with two people on a weekly basis to help make sure things stay on track and I write the right book for the right person and finish on schedule.

For this year, the book is my priority. But from the outside, it might look like my book, my newsletter, and my podcast are all equal priorities.

The only reason we’re able to sustain multiple things at once is because there are systems and teams in place for each.

If you’re in a position where you don’t yet have systems or teams in place to support your “multiple priorities”, how do you determine where to begin sorting things out?

First, build one system, or flywheel, or team for each thing at a time. Even if it’s just yourself and you’re not working with a team, commit to completely developing a good system for one thing before moving onto the next.

Which one thing, if you had a completed system or flywheel, would serve you the most if you completed it sooner? Start with that one.

In my case, we determined it would be most beneficial to have a completed flywheel for my newsletter before moving on to the next thing. So we built that first. Now that it’s running well, we can shift our focus to finishing the podcast flywheel, and so on.

Once you’ve completed a system for consistently doing your first thing, move on to making a system for the next.

Getting real about the fact that you can only truly have one priority at a time will help keep you and your team from feeling overwhelmed. Set up complete systems, one at a time, for the things you want to keep doing regularly. It will go a long way toward helping you maintain your sanity.

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PODCAST

Scaling From $2M to $10M/yr (Coaching Call With Tiago Forte)

This is a unique episode of Billion Dollar Creator as it's not your typical interview. You get to listen in as I coach Tiago Forte, creator of Building a Second Brain, on scaling his business from $2M to $10M/yr.

If you want to make $10M in 2024, I show you exactly what I’d do.

You’ll learn how to:

1. Overcome self-limiting beliefs
2. Scale your business effectively
3. Get profitable (using key principles)

​Watch or listen to episode »​

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CONVERTKIT FEATURE

Creator Profile: New templates & customizations

ConvertKit has some great new updates to Creator Profile that will help you make your newsletter, digital storefront, and link-in-bio page—your overall hub on the internet—even better.

• Creator Profile templates — There are five new design templates to choose from to make your Creator Profile your own. From simple newsletter feeds to an editorial style, you'll find what you need to make your content stand out.
• Color and font customizations — With templates comes more color and font customizations. You'll be able to update all the button colors, background colors, accent colors, and more to make the Creator Profile match your brand.
• New pages — Instead of just having tabs for your links, products, newsletter posts, and recommendations, these will now all be individual pages with their own URL links, making it easier for you and your subscribers to share your content.
• SEO — Configure the meta title and description of your Creator Profile page to optimize for search results on Google and how they appear where you share the links.
• Social share image — A social share image will be auto-created for you but you can also update the image to one you've designed yourself.

If you use ConvertKit, you can check out these new features by updating your Creator Profile here:

​View your Creator Profile »​

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Have a great week!

—Nathan