How to Reprioritise Your Team Without Creating Chaos

By Nelson Fernandes • 4 minutes of reading • February 19, 2026

TL;DR

If your team has 10 priorities, they have none. Your job is to cut through the noise, define what matters right now, and protect your team’s focus — relentlessly.

Your team is busy. Everyone’s busy. But look closer. How much of that busyness actually moves the needle? How many tasks are habit rather than priority? How many “urgent” things are actually just loud?

This is the leadership discipline most managers skip: defining what matters and protecting it against everything else.

It’s not glamorous. It doesn’t feel like leadership. But when your team finishes every week exhausted and yet nothing meaningful has been completed, the problem isn’t effort. It’s focus. And focus is your responsibility to provide.

The Problem

Everything Feels Urgent. Nothing Gets Finished.

Most teams don’t fail from doing too little. They fail from doing too much. Every new request gets added. Nothing gets removed. And your team ends up spread so thin that nothing gets the attention it deserves.

The result: everything takes longer, quality drops, and your best people burn out — not because the work was hard, but because there was no end to it.

As the leader, you’re the filter. You decide what gets through and what doesn’t. If you say yes to everything, you’re saying no to the things that actually matter. And your team pays the price.

The Method

How to Reprioritise Without Creating Chaos

Start every day or week with one clear priority

Not a to-do list. One priority. The thing that, if completed, makes everything else easier or less urgent. Communicate it clearly: “This week, the priority is X. Everything else supports it or waits.”

Filter new requests against current priorities

When something new comes in, don’t automatically add it. Ask: “Is this more important than what we’re already committed to?” If yes, something else needs to move. If no, it waits. This discipline is harder than it sounds — and more valuable than anything else you do.

Give explicit permission to deprioritise

Your team won’t stop doing low-value work unless you tell them it’s okay to stop. They need to hear: “Don’t worry about Y this week — focus on X.” That one sentence removes guilt and creates clarity.

Revisit and adjust — rigidity isn’t the goal

Priorities change. That’s normal. The discipline isn’t about setting priorities once and being rigid — it’s about constantly reassessing and communicating. If something changes mid-week, tell your team. Don’t let them find out by accident.

Scripts

How to Communicate Priority Changes

✓ SAY THIS

→ “This week, the single most important thing is [X]. Everything else comes second.”

→ “I know there’s a lot on your plate. Here’s what I need you to focus on — and here’s what can wait.”

→ “Priorities have shifted. Here’s what’s changed and why.”

✗ AVOID THIS

✗ “Everything’s a priority.” (Nothing is, then.)

✗ “Just juggle it.” (That’s not leadership — it’s abdication.)

✗ Adding new tasks without acknowledging existing workload.

From the Floor

What This Looks Like in Practice

Real Scenario

There was a period where I was passing on every request from above straight to my team. I thought I was being responsive. What I was actually doing was overwhelming them with competing priorities and no filter.

The turning point was realising that my job wasn’t to relay — it was to filter. I started asking myself: “Does my team need to act on this right now, or can I hold it?” That single question transformed how my team worked. Less panic. More focus. Better output.

— Nelson Fernandes

Your Next 24 Hours

One Thing to Do Right Now

Write down your team’s current priorities. All of them. If the list has more than three items, you’ve got a focus problem. Cross off everything that isn’t essential this week. Then tell your team — clearly — what’s left. That clarity is leadership.