Snowballs and Avalanches

Last week, I told folks that I was planning on talking about prioritization. First, an etymology. Did you know that ‘priority’ did not used to have a plural. Ideologically speaking, it did not need one. For if one had a priority, they had a singular priority. That little history helps me tremendously when choosing how I want to prioritize.

I am certain there are more than two ways to think about this. I offer the following two from my years getting out of medical debt.

Snowballing

If you watch a snowball go downhill, it gathers momentum and gets bigger. In terms of choosing a priority (let’s go with the singular), you would start small. If you have a few projects on your plate, you’d choose the one that puts up the least amount of resistance. It could be closest to being done. It could have the closest deadline. It could be the one you’re most excited about. From there, you can snowball to other projects that get successively larger. The idea is to build self-efficacy (the belief in your own capability based on previous action) so that you can keep going.

Avalanches

If you’ve ever seen footage of an avalanche (mercy, I hope none of you have been in an avalanche), then you are familiar with the sight: a significant amount of snow (for instance) drops onto another surface and the rest of it falls in increasingly smaller increments. In terms of choosing a priority (let’s stick with the singular), you would start with the path of greatest resistance. Typically, I choose an avalanche when I have a lot of motivation. Sometimes that path of greatest resistance comes from the largesse of the project, your fears about it, or the stakes of it (i.e., tenure, promotion, book deal, job placement, etc). The idea is to start with the challenge, so you develop a taste for “I can do hard things.” This, too, is a form of self-efficacy.

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These neat and nifty little paradigms may not always be possible given deadlines or other exigencies. Nevertheless, persist.