How to Prioritize Tasks (Starting With a Disputed Story Worth Knowing Anyway)

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A story has circulated for years about Warren Buffett and his longtime personal pilot, Mike Flint. Buffett reportedly asked Flint to write down his top 25 career goals, then circle the five most important. When Flint said he’d focus mainly on the top five but still give the other 20 some attention along the way, Buffett is quoted as correcting him firmly. “No, you’ve got it wrong. Everything you didn’t circle just became your avoid-at-all-cost list.”

Here’s the honest part almost no version of this story includes. Several researchers and writers who’ve tried to trace its origin have found no solid documentation confirming it actually happened as described. It’s widely repeated, appears in dozens of respected productivity blogs, and gets attributed confidently to Buffett, but the real source is unclear enough that it’s fair to treat it as a business parable rather than a verified event.

That doesn’t make the lesson inside it any less useful, and it’s worth separating the two. Whether or not Buffett actually said those exact words to a real pilot, the underlying idea holds up on its own, and it happens to match something research on goal setting independently supports. A meta-analysis by psychologists Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, spanning decades of research, found that commitment and specificity, not the sheer number of goals you’re chasing, is what actually drives performance. In other words, the fictional or semi-fictional Buffett story and the real research arrive at the same place. Prioritizing isn’t really about identifying what matters. It’s about deliberately ignoring almost everything else.

Why Long To-Do Lists Quietly Sabotage Themselves

how to prioritize tasks long lists sabotage

The core problem the Buffett story illustrates, real or not, is one worth taking seriously on its own.

  • A list of 25 things you’re technically committed to isn’t a priority list, it’s a list of distractions with a few real priorities hidden inside
  • Giving “some attention” to twenty secondary items is often what actually prevents the top few from ever getting real focus
  • Locke and Latham’s research supports this directly, specificity and commitment predict performance far better than the number of goals being pursued
  • A shorter, more deliberately narrow list isn’t a compromise, it’s usually what actually produces results

Build Your Own Two-List System

how to prioritize tasks two list system

Whether or not the original story is verified, the method itself is simple enough to actually use.

  • Write down everything currently competing for your attention, tasks, goals, projects, without filtering yet
  • Choose your top five honestly, based on what would actually move you forward, not what feels most urgent right now
  • Treat everything else as a genuine “not now” list, not a secondary priority you’ll get to when you have time
  • Revisit and rebuild both lists regularly as your top five get accomplished or change

Separate Urgent From Important Before Prioritizing

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A task list often gets tangled because urgency and importance get treated as the same thing.

  • Ask of each task whether it’s genuinely important to your actual goals, separate from whether it feels pressing right now
  • Urgent tasks demand attention regardless of their real value, which is exactly why they tend to crowd out what actually matters
  • Give real weight to tasks that are important but not urgent, since they’re the ones most likely to get quietly skipped
  • A task that’s neither urgent nor important is a strong candidate for your own “avoid at all cost” list

Use a Simple Scoring Method When a List Feels Too Close to Call

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Not every task is obviously more important than another, and a simple scoring approach helps when everything feels equally pressing.

  • Rate each task on impact, how much it actually moves you toward a meaningful outcome
  • Rate each task on effort, how much time and energy it will genuinely take
  • Prioritize high impact, low effort tasks first, since they offer the most return for the least cost
  • Be honest about tasks that are low impact regardless of effort, since these are the easiest to eliminate entirely

Protect Your Top Priorities Once You’ve Chosen Them

Choosing priorities is only half the work, the harder part is actually defending them once the list is set.

  • Say no to new requests that don’t fit your current top priorities, rather than quietly expanding the list again
  • Revisit your top priorities weekly to confirm they still hold up, rather than assuming they’re fixed indefinitely
  • Notice when a “quick” task threatens to eat time that belongs to a real priority, and treat that pull seriously
  • Remember that ruthless elimination, not better scheduling, is usually what actually protects your top priorities

  • The “Yes or No” Rule

    If a new task doesn’t clearly support one of your top priorities, it’s probably a “not now. A lukewarm “maybe” often becomes a hidden distraction that steals time from meaningful work. This filter doesn’t mean opportunities are bad—it means you’re choosing the right timing. Reviewing your “not now” list weekly ensures good ideas aren’t forgotten, just intentionally postponed.

FAQ: How to Prioritize Tasks

Its exact origin is disputed. It’s widely repeated across productivity content, but several attempts to trace the original source have found no solid confirmation it happened as commonly described. It’s best treated as a useful illustration rather than a verified historical event.

Separate what’s genuinely important to your actual goals from what merely feels urgent, then commit to a short list, five items or fewer, of real priorities, treating everything else as deliberately deprioritized rather than a secondary focus.

Try scoring each task on impact and effort. Tasks with high impact and lower effort deserve priority, while low impact tasks, regardless of effort, are strong candidates for elimination rather than scheduling.

Weekly works well for most people, since priorities shift as tasks get completed or circumstances change, and a list set once a month can quietly become outdated without you noticing.

Whether or not Warren Buffett ever actually said those exact words to his pilot, the idea behind the story holds up on its own, and real research on goal setting backs the same conclusion from a different direction. Prioritizing well isn’t about identifying more things that matter. It’s about choosing a short, honest list, and treating almost everything else as something you’re deliberately choosing to set aside, at least for now.

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