🪜 My hierarchy of focus

When I started my first business many years ago I often felt like I was drowning. One of two scenarios played out:

1. There was so much to do that I felt overwhelmed.

   
   

2. I had no idea what I was meant to do, so I felt indecisive and overwhelmed.

In both scenarios one of two things happened:

1. I either did absolutely nothing because I was paralysed by the overwhelm and indecision.

   
   

2. Or I did loads of stuff but at the end of the day I felt like I hadn’t really moved forward.

   
   

At best I felt like I was treading water, but mostly I felt like I was being swept away by the current. How on earth was I meant to make progress?

The general advice online was to do things like pomodoro and to “prioritise”. They didn’t work. There were so many options, what should I prioritise? It changed each day!

After struggling, thrashing, failing, I figured that it was better to create a hierarchy of focus - a set list of priorities that remain the same every single day. One system to follow. Simple.

My hierarchy of focus goes like this (in order!):

1. Anything related to health

   1. This includes sleeping well, eating well, exercise, time with friends, etc.

   2. You can’t work if you’re sick or dead. Your health is your first foundation. Nothing can be more productive than looking after your health.

      1. In practice this means things like having hard boundaries for emails (replying is never as important as sleeping well) and scheduling my calendar “backwards”.

         
         

2. YOUR business

   1. No client’s business/life is as important as your own. If their business fails then you lose a client, if your business fails then you lose your livelihood and all of your other clients lose the help you provide (and that they need). You are your most important customer.

   2. In practice this means I work ON my business above any other work. Developing my skills, my systems, etc. Counterintuitively, this helps me serve clients better as the improvements I make for my own business allow me to help clients better and more efficiently.

   3. I often tell my clients to spend the first productive hour of every day working on their own business, their clients can wait. One hour won’t make a big difference to your clients, but one hour each day working on your own business makes an enormous difference.

      
      

3. Current clients

   1. Retaining the clients you already have is both easier and more profitable than signing new clients. Expand revenue with current clients before worrying about potential clients or leads.

   2. Some caveats here, such as if you're too reliant on one client (which creates risk) or if you're going through a strategic shift or if you've got a unique market capture opportunity. But the vast majority of the time you want to focus on expanding revenue from current clients above all else.

   3. In practice this means things like replying to emails from current clients first and considering how I can better serve existing clients before trying to build anything for new clients.

      
      

4. Past clients

   1. Past clients have paid you before, they already know what you do and how you do it. There is already some level of trust. They are easier to convert than randomers (and they can provide other easy wins like referrals!).

   2. In practice this means reminding past customers that I still exist, asking whether they need my help again, figuring out why they left in the first place and fixing that gap, and asking for reviews or referrals.

      
      

5. Potential clients

   1. Last but not least, I deal with potential clients. I have a separate hierarchy for what order I should deal with potential customers, with the “warmest” prospects and opportunities going first.

   2. In practice this means replying to leads with high purchase intent first, qualifying people quickly, and often ignoring new customer acquisition “opportunities”.

I work ON my business as per the business hierarchy of needs, which can sometimes mean prioritising client acquisition over improving efficiency any further.

What you work on matters more than how hard you work. Knowing how to prioritise my tasks not only dramatically shifted how my day looked (I spend FAR more focus on self-care than I did those years ago when I first started) but it has also significantly improved my business.

Without the hierarchy of focus, I’d probably still be a burned out business owner working hard but going nowhere.

With the hierarchy of focus I’m happier and swimming with the current, things now flow smoothly. I stopped just treading water and started succeeding. You can do the same.

The question and email chain from a client that sparked the hierarchy of focus point

in this week’s Work Smart Wednesday

This point came from my newsletter Work Smart Wednesday, if you would like to read the other related points I made in that email you can find it here: https://worksmartwednesday.substack.com/p/work-smart-wednesday-july-30-2025

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