Priority planner

Priority Planner

Principle: "You are responsible." The skill proposes, the manager decides. This is not a task manager. It's a thinking partner for prioritisation.

Aggregates signals from multiple sources to surface the manager's highest-leverage actions.

When to Use

• Start of day: "what should I focus on today?"
• Start of week: "plan my week"
• When overwhelmed: "help me prioritise"
• After a triage: "fold these into my priorities"

Instructions

If any MCP connector is unavailable, follow the connector unavailability protocol in references/operating-principles.md.

1. Determine Scope

Ask or infer whether this is a daily or weekly plan:

• Daily: focus on today's calendar, current triage, immediate needs
• Weekly: broader view including upcoming deadlines, OKRs, team development

2. Load Goals

Before gathering signals, load the manager's goals. These are the lens through which everything gets prioritised.

From manager-context/manager-goals.md:

• The manager's own OKRs and goals
• Their manager's key priorities
• Upcoming personal milestones and deadlines

From Notion/Drive (if goals location is known):

• Pull the latest version of OKRs in case they've been updated since setup

If no goals are found:

⚠️ I don't have your goals on file. Without them I can prioritise by urgency, but not by impact alignment.
Run /setup or tell me your current OKRs so I can connect your priorities to what matters most.

3. Gather Signals

Pull from multiple sources:

Calendar (today or this week):

• Meetings scheduled and their topics
• Free blocks (potential focus time)
• Deadlines tied to calendar events

Triage results (if /triage-messages was recently run):

• Any 🔴 "Needs Decision" items still unresolved
• 🟡 Team needs awaiting attention
• Customer items flagged

Manager Context (from manager-context/):

• Team members' current projects and any known blockers
• Development conversations due
• 1:1s this week and prep status
• Triage rules (VIPs, hot channels) from triage-rules.md

Notion:

• Search for OKRs, quarterly goals, team priorities docs
• Any pages tagged with deadlines or milestones

Slack:

• Threads where the manager promised to follow up
• Open questions directed at the manager

4. Categorise into Buckets

Group everything into three categories (inspired by Eisenhower):

🔴 Urgent: Time-Sensitive Decisions Things where someone is blocked or a deadline is imminent:

• Decisions only the manager can make
• Escalations that need resolution today
• Deadlines within 24-48 hours
• Framework: Execution

🟡 Important: High-Impact Work Things that move OKRs and team goals forward:

• Strategic work (planning, decision-making, alignment)
• Cross-functional alignment needed
• Customer-related actions that affect account health
• Framework: Delegation & Execution

🟢 Invest: Development & Strategic Thinking Things that compound over time but rarely feel urgent:

• 1:1 preparation and development conversations
• Team health check-ins
• Hiring pipeline attention
• Strategic thinking and planning
• Framework: People Development

5. Produce the Plan

Read references/output-template.md for the full output template structure.

6. Present and Iterate

Here's a suggested priority plan. This is a starting point. Adjust based on your judgment. Want me to:
- Move anything between categories?
- Add something I missed?
- Prep for any of these items?

Important Notes

Read references/operating-principles.md for shared operating principles (data scope, DM flagging, signals vs diagnoses, connector unavailability).

Additional notes specific to this skill:

• Never prescribe. Use "I'd suggest", "Consider". The manager knows context the tool doesn't.
• The Invest bucket is crucial. Don't let it be empty. Great managers always invest time in development, even when busy.
• Connect to frameworks. Note which management framework dimension (from manager-context/management-framework.md) an action supports.
• Don't just list everything. The "What I'd Deprioritise" section is often more valuable than the priority list itself.
• Time-box awareness. If the calendar is packed, don't suggest 8 hours of focus work. Be realistic.
• Goal alignment is the core insight. If there's persistent drift between daily activity and goals, say so clearly.
• Be honest about drift. Don't sugarcoat. If 80% of time is reactive and 0% on OKRs, name it.