Feeling like you’re constantly juggling tasks, deadlines, and team requests? You’re not alone. In any work environment, knowing what to tackle first is the key to productivity, but it’s often the biggest challenge. Without a clear system, important projects can slip through the cracks while your team wastes energy on low-impact activities.
The solution is a smart combination of proven prioritization frameworks and the right prioritization tools to put those methods into action. These tools help you move beyond gut feelings, align your team around clear goals, and ensure your efforts deliver the best results.
This guide breaks down the best prioritization frameworks and tools to help you regain control and drive your team’s success. Let’s get started.
TL;DR: Prioritization tools help you apply frameworks like the Eisenhower Matrix or RICE to rank tasks, ensuring your team focuses on high-impact work. monday.com is a top choice because it allows you to build custom priority matrices and automate workflows, all in one platform.
What are prioritization tools (and why do you need them)?
Prioritization tools are applications or software that help you organize tasks and projects based on their importance, urgency, and strategic value. They provide a structured way to evaluate your to-do list, so you can make informed decisions about where to focus your team’s time and resources.
While it can feel good to make a decision based on a gut feeling, it’s not a reliable method, especially when your whole team must work with the results. By using prioritization techniques and tools, you can reduce hidden biases that might affect the decision-making process. The right tools help you meet deadlines, manage resources effectively, and support transparency that keeps the whole team informed.
5 essential prioritization frameworks to master
1. The Eisenhower Matrix (Urgent vs. Important)
The Eisenhower Matrix is a simple yet powerful framework for organizing tasks into four quadrants based on urgency and importance. This helps you identify what to do now, what to schedule for later, what to delegate, and what to eliminate. It’s perfect for daily and weekly planning.
- Urgent and Important: Do these tasks immediately.
- Important, but Not Urgent: Schedule these tasks to do later.
- Urgent, but Not Important: Delegate these tasks if possible.
- Neither Urgent nor Important: Eliminate these tasks.
You can easily build this matrix on monday.com using a template to categorize your work visually.
2. The RICE scoring model (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort)
The RICE model is a scoring system commonly used by product managers, but it’s useful for any team trying to prioritize features, projects, or initiatives. Each task is scored on four factors, and the final score helps you compare competing ideas objectively.
- Reach: How many people will this impact?
- Impact: How much will this impact each person? (Scored on a scale)
- Confidence: How confident are you in your estimates? (As a percentage)
- Effort: How much time will this take from your team?
3. The Impact vs. Effort Matrix (Quick Wins and Major Projects)
Similar to the Eisenhower Matrix, this framework helps you evaluate tasks based on the effort required versus the potential impact. This is great for identifying “quick wins” that deliver high value with low effort, which can be a huge morale booster for your team.
- High Impact, Low Effort: Quick wins. Do these first.
- High Impact, High Effort: Major projects. Schedule and plan these carefully.
- Low Impact, Low Effort: Fill-ins. Do these when you have free time.
- Low Impact, High Effort: Thankless tasks. Avoid these.
4. The MoSCoW method (Must-have, Should-have, Could-have)
The MoSCoW method helps stakeholders reach a consensus on the importance of different tasks or features by categorizing them into four groups:
- Must-have: Non-negotiable requirements for the project to be considered a success.
- Should-have: Important but not vital. These can be held back if needed.
- Could-have: Desirable but not necessary. These are often the first to be deprioritized.
- Won’t-have: Items that have been explicitly excluded from the current scope.
5. The Pareto Principle (The 80/20 Rule)
The Pareto Principle suggests that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In a work context, this means about 20% of your efforts produce 80% of your results. This principle encourages you to identify and focus on that critical 20% of tasks that deliver the most value, rather than getting bogged down in less impactful work.
The 10 best prioritization tools for any team
Once you’ve chosen a framework, you need the right software to implement it. Here are the best prioritization tools to help your team focus on what matters most.
1. monday.com (Best for overall work management)
monday.com is a comprehensive Work OS that allows teams to build any workflow, including advanced prioritization matrices. With customizable columns for scoring (like RICE), status labels (for MoSCoW), and multiple views like Gantt charts and Kanban boards, it’s incredibly flexible. You can connect prioritization to your overall project goals, improve workload management, track resource allocation, and automate notifications to keep everyone aligned.
2. Asana (Best for task-driven teams)
Asana is a popular project management tool that excels at task management. It helps teams organize, track, and manage their work. While it offers ways to set priorities on tasks, it’s more focused on the flow of work from to-do to done rather than complex, data-driven prioritization frameworks.
3. Trello (Best for simple Kanban-style prioritization)
Trello is known for its simple, visual Kanban boards. It’s a great tool for individuals and small teams who need a straightforward way to visualize workflow and move tasks through different stages. Prioritization is typically done by ordering cards in a list, making it a good fit for simpler projects.
4. Jira (Best for agile development teams)
Jira is the go-to tool for software development teams using Agile methodologies. It has built-in features for backlog grooming and sprint planning, which are forms of prioritization. It supports methods like MoSCoW and allows for custom fields to create scoring systems.
5. ClickUp (Best for feature-rich customization)
ClickUp is an all-in-one productivity platform that offers a high degree of customization. You can set priorities for tasks, create custom fields for scoring, and use different views to manage your work. Its complexity can be a downside for teams looking for a simpler solution.
6. Airtable (Best for spreadsheet-style databases)
Airtable combines the simplicity of a spreadsheet with the power of a database. It’s highly flexible for creating custom prioritization systems, especially for teams that need to manage large amounts of data and create unique scoring models.
7. Notion (Best for integrated docs and tasks)
Notion is a versatile workspace that blends notes, docs, wikis, and project management. Teams can build custom prioritization tables and databases, linking tasks directly to project documentation. It’s ideal for those who want to keep context and tasks in one place.
8. Todoist (Best for personal and small team task management)
Todoist is a clean and simple to-do list app that helps you capture and organize tasks. It allows you to set priority levels (P1 to P4) for each task, making it easy to see what you need to work on next. It’s best suited for individual productivity or small, straightforward team projects.
9. Wrike (Best for enterprise-level project management)
Wrike is a robust project management tool designed for larger teams and enterprises. It offers advanced features for planning, resource management, and reporting. Its task prioritization features are integrated into a broader system of project timelines and dependencies.
10. Microsoft Planner (Best for teams in the Microsoft ecosystem)
Integrated with Microsoft 365, Planner is a simple, card-based tool for team collaboration. It allows teams to create plans, assign tasks, and see charts of their progress. Prioritization is straightforward, using buckets and labels to organize work.
How to build a priority matrix in monday.com (Step-by-step)
monday.com makes it easy to turn theory into practice. Instead of just talking about priorities, you can build a dynamic, visual matrix that your whole team can use. Here’s how:
- Start with a template: Choose a project management or weekly to-do list template as your foundation.
- Add custom columns: Add columns to represent your chosen framework. For an Impact vs. Effort matrix, you can add a “Rating” column for Impact and another for Effort. For RICE, add “Numbers” columns for each component.
- Create a formula column: Use the Formula column to automatically calculate a priority score. For example, you can create a simple formula to multiply Impact by Effort, or a more complex one for a full RICE score.
- Visualize your priorities: Use board views to see your priorities at a glance. You can sort your board by the priority score column to bring the most important tasks to the top. Or, use a Chart view to create a visual bubble chart that maps out your matrix.
- Automate your workflow: Set up automations to notify team members when a high-priority task is assigned or when a deadline is approaching. You can even use monday.com’s AI features to summarize task descriptions or suggest the next steps.
What to look for in a prioritization tool
When choosing a prioritization tool, consider these key features:
- Customization: Can the tool adapt to your team’s specific framework, whether it’s RICE, MoSCoW, or something you’ve created yourself?
- Collaboration: Does it allow your team to discuss and agree on priorities within the platform?
- Visualization: Can you see your priorities in different ways, like a list, Kanban board, or chart?
- Integration: Does it connect with the other tools your team already uses?
- Automation: Can it help you automate repetitive tasks related to your workflow?
Prioritize with purpose using monday.com
When you know what matters most, you position your team for success. The right prioritization tools help you move from a reactive to-do list to an intentional, strategic workflow. With monday.com, you get the flexibility to build any prioritization model your team needs, connect it to larger project goals, and keep everyone aligned in one central workspace.
Stop guessing, and start prioritizing with clarity.
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