Optimize or prioritize? | When everything feels urgent | The journalist test

Last weekend was super fun and active. My brother came to visit, and we hiked about 10 miles, visited the trolls at Dorothea Dix Park, and saw Salt-N-Pepa, En Vogue, and TLC. I also showed him how to use Claude to improve his SEO, GEO, and AEO for his steel business.

The setup matters more than the ask: Claude needs to understand your business before you ask it to do any of that. I hired a human AI partner to help me set it up, and it's been super educational and helpful. Mistakes companies make with AI are the same mistakes they make with other tools: implementation without training, and training without time to practice.

I also spoke to more than 700 attendees on Elevate Your Focus, now called Deep Focus, Fewer Fires.

Paula, a CPA who attended, put it this way: "Marcey strongly encourages participants to have a single takeaway, which ironically, is much more effective than having several takeaways."

That's on purpose. I ask everyone to pick one thing they'll implement in the next week. Just one.

On Wednesday, I was an invited guest to listen to Peyton Manning. I don't watch sports on TV and don't really know much about him (much to the horror of my Indiana family), but I walked away super impressed. He talked a lot about football, of course, but more so about his approach to working smart, respect for your role and your team, and how there are people who manage without leading. Now I understand the hype around him!

As many of you know, I'm on the board of the Work Meaningful Foundation. We built a middle school and a technology lab in the village of Akyremade, Ghana; we're raising money to build a new elementary school to serve up to 300 students. The foundation also recognizes outstanding teachers here in the U.S. I've been to Ghana twice, and it's so rewarding.

We're a tiny but mighty board, and we have two open volunteer roles: treasurer and bookkeeper. If you're interested, or know someone who'd be great, here are the job descriptions.

When you get this, I'll be sitting with a frownie face because I was supposed to be on a plane to Boston to visit friends and spend the whole weekend being a tourist outdoors. The weather won't cooperate, so we canceled. Now to fill the weekend at home and maybe starting the new season of Ted Lasso.

On with the Weekender!

​Episode 129: Ways We Optimize Instead of Prioritize Optimization is saving ten minutes in a meeting. Prioritization is asking whether the meeting needed to happen at all.

This walks through six places, work and personal, where people often optimize when they should have prioritized instead. One Thing You Can Do Now: Look at your next meeting invite list. Find the one person you could send a one-slide update to instead of giving them a seat at the table. Listen 12 min Read the 6-minute version.​

ONE TOOL FOR WHEN EVERYTHING FEELS URGENT AT ONCE When every task feels critical, and every request sounds reasonable, the fix usually sits upstream of your to-do list.

Why: Nothing has been run through a filter yet. ​The Relentless Prioritization Filter is three questions to ask, in order, before anything gets your time and attention. ​Get the Filter (free download) This filter is just one of the core tools I offer in The Right Things First​, my new pocket guide to relentless prioritization, available for team bulk orders starting at 10 copies.

WHAT THE ACTION CLUB IS COMMITTING TO: Each week, Reclaim Your Workday Action Club members commit to one move before the next session.

Two recent ones: One is skipping the committee meetings her direct report now runs, because "there is nothing that she can't figure out happening."Another plans tomorrow's one big to-do before she leaves each night. Two big Ahas: One member heard a peer describe success in going offline for stretches and is taking it back to her office. Another's was simply: "Theme Days!!!" This is the last cohort. If you want this kind of follow-through for your team, reply and let's talk.

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P.S. The Right Things First has been out for three weeks. If you invested in copies for your team and they're sitting in a bag unread, the first chapter takes about six minutes, and the whole book about an hour. It also comes with a free full audiobook. Need copies for the rest of the team? Reply with your number.