Unlocking the Ownership Advantage: Mastering Prioritization for Entrepreneurs

Prioritization is often hailed as the secret sauce to entrepreneurial success, but as business owners know, putting it into practice is far from straightforward. On a recent episode of The Ownership Advantage, hosts Tanner and Kay delve into the messy reality of prioritizing when everything seems important, offering clarity on how to break out of overwhelm and achieve real progress. In this post, we'll expand on their insights—including actionable steps for turning chaos into structure.

The Challenge: When Everything Feels Important

Kay sets the scene with a struggle familiar to most entrepreneurs: “Sometimes I find myself opening up my email, writing half an email, and then I’m doing this over here…but I’m not really accomplishing anything, but my brain is just going like a ping pong ball.” If you’re running multiple streams of income, handling different divisions within your business, or simply chasing too many rabbits, prioritization turns into an emotional tug-of-war.

The heart of the problem? When faced with so many urgent tasks, it becomes nearly impossible to decide where your attention should go. As Tanner points out, “We can’t prioritize if we don’t know what we’re prioritizing for.” 

Step One: Define What Success Looks Like

Before jumping into tactics, Tanner emphasizes the importance of stepping back. His advice: start with your biggest, most audacious long-term goals and then reverse engineer them. What does success look like in 20 years? In 10? Five? One?

Breaking yearly goals down into quarters—and even weeks—creates a roadmap that brings abstract dreams into the territory of concrete action. “The closer it gets to you, the greater clarity you’re likely going to have,” Tanner says. By asking, “What has to happen first in order for other things to take place?” you can start stacking your priorities in a meaningful sequence.

Kay shares her own aha moment: realizing that her “money later” goals, like building a media division, needed to be temporarily back-burnered in favor of “money now” tasks that would keep the business’s lights on. This foundation, once established, would free up resources for the passion projects down the line.

Focus: The Power of Tactical Planning and Accountability

So how do you keep focus—especially if, like Kay, you’re prone to chasing shiny objects? Tanner offers a blend of tactical planning and accountability:  

- List your top 2-3 quarterly priorities.

- Break those into weekly action steps.

- Don’t move on to new tasks until the current priorities are complete.

- Enlist an accountability partner or coach for regular check-ins.

This structure isn’t about stifling entrepreneurial energy—it’s about channeling it. As Kay notes, “It motivates me because I want to get past the step we’re on…if I get this done, I get to move on to something more exciting.”

Sometimes the most critical tasks—like managing finances—aren’t glamorous, but they are foundational. Completing these creates the conditions where you can invest more time in the things you truly love.

Apply the A, B, C, D Task Framework

To bring even more clarity, Tanner introduces a practical way to classify your tasks:

- A tasks: Directly make money for the business.

- B tasks: Indirectly support money-making activities (like lead nurturing or skill development).

- C tasks: Will cost you money if neglected (e.g., paying bills).

- D tasks: Everything else—nice to have but rarely essential.

This filter helps you ruthlessly prioritize and shed, delegate, or defer non-essential work. For early-stage entrepreneurs, stacking your days with A and B tasks is the fastest path to being able to afford help with C and D-level work.

Audit Your Time: The Eye-Opening Power of a Time Study

Even with clear goals, many entrepreneurs don’t realize where their hours are really going. Tanner recommends conducting a time study—simply track (with pen and paper or a time tracker tool) every 15-30 minute activity for a week. Seeing the actual breakdown allows you to spot inefficiencies, distractions, and opportunities to realign with your biggest priorities.

Final Thoughts

Prioritization isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing what matters most. By defining your success, staging your goals, using practical task frameworks, and regularly auditing your time, you can focus your energy where it counts and build lasting momentum. As Kay concludes, “Knowing that by accomplishing [the hard stuff] and breaking it down, that I only have a week…you have the light at the end of the tunnel, and once you get there, you’re like, oh, I can move on now.”

Master your priorities, and you master your business destiny.

Check out the full episode on YouTube HERE

Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts HERE