Top-Five Middling-Priority Filter
Protect your best goals from attractive but lesser priorities
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 97%
Burkeman discusses a story often attributed to Warren Buffett, while warning that the attribution may be false. List 25 goals, rank them, focus on the top five, and avoid the next 20 because they matter enough to distract you but not enough to deserve priority. The mechanism is opportunity-cost visibility: easy rejections are not the main threat; attractive middling priorities are. Protect the selected goals by saying no to some things you genuinely want, then complete major work sequentially where possible instead of keeping every project active. The exact numbers are a practical exercise rather than a universal law. The durable principle is to distinguish the few priorities worth sacrificing for from the many good options that would dissipate limited time and energy.
Origin
Burkeman says the story is attributed to Warren Buffett but probably did not originate with him. Extracted from The Diary of a CEO.
Core principles
- 01Good opportunities can threaten the best opportunities
- 02Finite time makes sacrifice unavoidable
- 03Saying no must include things you genuinely want
- 04Sequential focus can finish more work than scattered activity
How to run it
- 1
Build the candidate list
Write down 25 goals or commitments that genuinely matter, including the attractive secondary ones.
Pro tip Use one time horizon so unlike goals do not distort the ranking.
- 2
Rank without ties
Order the list from one to 25 to force the trade-offs that an unranked list conceals.
Watch out Do not rank only by immediate excitement or revenue.
- 3
Select the top five
Treat the first five as the goals that receive active focus and protected time.
- 4
Quarantine the middle
Label goals six through 25 as especially dangerous distractions rather than harmless background options.
Pro tip Keep a written not-now list so refusal does not require pretending the ideas are bad.
- 5
Sequence the active work
Within the selected set, finish one substantial project before bringing the next fully into active work where possible.
Watch out Do not neglect genuine obligations under the guise of focus.
In the wild
Burkeman says that when he trains himself to work on one major article or book at a time and lets the others wait, he gets more of them finished than when he keeps a finger in every project.
→ Concentrated effort turns an active project into a completed one before the next begins.
Common mistakes
Rejecting only unwanted work
The difficult trade-off is refusing desirable options that rank below the few most important commitments.
Keeping every project warm
Partial attention across many projects can feel expansive while slowing completion of all of them.
Repeating uncertain attribution
Do not present the exercise as verified Warren Buffett advice; Burkeman explicitly doubts that origin.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for people with more appealing opportunities, projects, or relationships than they can meaningfully sustain.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when urgent duties or responsibilities cannot ethically be ranked out of active attention.
From the transcript
“take the next 20 and avoid them like the plague”
“you have to say no to things that you do want to do”
“do one big thing at a time”
From the episode
How To Finally Stop Procrastinating: Oliver Burkeman