Prioritization

In a school where the student holds the educational initiative, she must make decisions at every level imaginable. The key to making decisions is prioritizing the various choices. Usually we do this quite unconsciously. However, sometimes the relative importance of things is not so obvious to our instincts. Out of the thousands of things we want to do, we have to choose five or six to focus on for a semester. In a brainstormed list, we need to choose which topics are the main ones for the essay and which are just details. Weighing up the sides of a decision is hard enough when there are only two choices, but what about when there are ten or more (as in the above examples)? Richard Bolles, who wrote What Color Is Your Parachute?, came up with an excellent (if slightly tedious) way of boiling these kinds of situations down to a bunch of two-choice comparisons. Here it is:

grid

All you do is put your items in the diagonal slots 1-10. The little boxes are arranged so that every item is paired with every other. Circle the number of the item of the item that is more important, more central, more whatever. Sometimes you have to ask yourself the kinds of extreme questions that you would in an ordinary decision, like "if I could only do one of these before I die, which would it be?" Then add up the number of circles for each item. The one with the most circles is top priority, and the one with the fewest circles is lowest priority. For clarity, here is an example, in which I am ranking my favorite kinds of fruit. The candidates are apples, kiwis, bananas, blueberries, and mangoes.

fruit

Of course, this little thing has its limits. If I had decided that I would rather have a blueberry than a kiwi on my last day alive, then I would have circled 5 instead of 2 for that comparison, and ended up with a three-way tie of apples, kiwis, and blueberries. Still, it can help you get clear.

Workshop Discussion Sparks

Decision-making, responsibility, social action, and Friends World education.

Inspired and Creative

Prioritize the Goals in your Learning Plan

Rigorous Training

Copy the blank chart above a few times, and try prioritizing little silly things like your ten favorite songs, or what you consider to be the six most important characteristics of a good cartoon, or whatever. By adding or deleting rows of boxes at the bottom, you can use the pattern for any number of items.

AAAAAGGGHHHH!

The most common way to make decisions is by just pondering it for a while. The above grid is an alternative. Another very effective alternative is talking with someone else about your choices, not just because they might have good advice, but because the act of talking about it often helps to get it clear in one's mind. Writing about it in a diary often accomplishes the same thing.

See Also

OUTLINES (G.1)
LEARNING PLANGOALS STATEMENT (A.2.a)
LEARNING PLANLEARNING OBJECTIVES (A.2.b)
EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION/LEARNING CYCLE (C.1)
EDITING (G.7)
PROCRASTINATION (H.7)
PURPOSE OF FRIENDS WORLD (B.2)
NOTE-TAKING (G.6)
BUDGETING (H.9)
Richard Bolles, What Color Is Your Parachute? (Ten Speed Press, new edition every year) for a more detailed explanation of the priority grid thing, as well as a lot of other great stuff on figuring out your skills, goals, roles, and life in general.

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