Why Task Prioritization Is Essential + Tools for Prioritizing Tasks Like an Expert

Finding the right tools for prioritizing tasks is one of the most critical steps you can take to grow your business. Effective task management is essential to keeping your team happy, productive, and profitable.

Why task prioritization matters: Prioritization is crucial because it enables your team to complete their most critical tasks and meet project deadlines. How you organize and prioritize your tasks can be the differentiator between successful and unsuccessful projects.

Finding the right tool is essential: Fortunately, learning how to prioritize work and meet deadlines is not as complicated as you might think — you just need the right tool.

In this article, we’ll show you how to find a tool to help you avoid procrastination and focus on the most important work first.

What is task prioritization?

Task prioritization is the process of determining the most critical tasks and organizing a project timeline accordingly. It helps you assess your projects and address the most time-sensitive, high-priority tasks first.

Why is task prioritization important?

On a strategic level, prioritizing tasks also allows you to balance items that need immediate attention with more long-term and highly important items.

Here are a few reasons we’re sticklers for task prioritization (and why you should be too):

• Increase productivity: Prioritizing tasks increases productivity by helping you use your time and energy more effectively.
• Simplify project timelines: with a clear list of tasks, deadlines, and priorities, project timelines become straightforward and consistent.
• Keep clients and stakeholders happy: Priority sorting allows you to put work-related emergencies and high-value clients at the top of your list. This keeps key stakeholders happy.
• Avoid burnout: Lacking a clear direction is frustrating. Not meeting deadlines leads to stress and overworking, so it’s important to make clear deadlines and dependencies. This will help your team complete their work without burning out.
• Fight procrastination: By prioritizing tasks, individuals who tend to procrastinate can determine which tasks to focus on next. According to Princeton University, time management techniques are indispensable for fighting procrastination.

As with every aspect of workforce management, you need the right tools to succeed. A project management tool is the best way to prioritize Tasks. Let’s take a look at some of the best options.

Tools to use to prioritize your tasks

Mastering task prioritization can help you complete projects more efficiently — but using a tool to automate this process is a game changer.

1. Hubstaff Tasks

Hubstaff Tasks is an intuitive and versatile project management tool for teams of all sizes. Use it as a standalone task prioritization tool or add the Hubstaff Tasks add-on to your existing Hubstaff account. You’ll be able to track time to Tasks, see real-time project spend, and more.

Key features for task prioritization

Sprint planning: Set up Sprints, add team members, and pull tasks into set blocks of work. With Sprint planning, your team can sort their Tasks so their highest priority work is always on top.

Kanban and timeline views: Set up custom workflows and use drag-and-drop technology to move your tasks through a Kanban board view. With timeline views, it’s easy to visualize work and see where your team is at on a project.

Task prioritization: Use Hubstaff’s labeling feature to set task priorities that are easy to view. Then, establish task dependencies to ensure your team knows about roadblocks before they impact deadlines. You can also add checklists with due dates for more detailed prioritization.

Project buckets (Epics): Struggling to prioritize larger projects? Group smaller tasks together to make day-to-day work easier to manage. They’re perfect for Agile teams and reducing roadblocks.

Reporting and insights: Sync Hubstaff Tasks with Hubstaff’s time tracking software to see real-time project spend, payroll, and productivity. You can also use the Insights add-on to prioritize meetings, software subscriptions, and more.

Pricing

• Free plan: Free for single users
• Paid plans start at $7 per user/month

2. Monday.com

Monday.com is an open-source tool that enables users to create the features they need to manage their projects.

Key features for task prioritization

Task prioritization: Monday.com’s custom task automation and notifications make task prioritization more straightforward.

Board views: Visualize your project with multiple views, like Kanban, calendar, timeline, Gantt chart, and more.

Project portfolios: Gain a high-level perspective of all projects with progress updates and reporting. Use this tool to see how your team is progressing through a project.

Pricing

• Free plan: free for up to two users
• Basic plan: $8 per user/month (billed annually)
• Standard plan: $10 per user/month (billed annually)
• Pro plan: $16 per user/month (billed annually)
• Enterprise plan: Contact Monday.com’s sales team for pricing

3. ClickUp

ClickUp is a project management tool that can help you sort your tasks in order of importance — and communicate that with your team.

Key features for task prioritization

Task prioritization: Break tasks into easy-to-handle pieces. Then visually assign task priority using ClickUp’s flag system.

Templates: With the Priority Matrix or Impact Effort Matrix template, you can arrange tasks in order of importance.

Task dependencies: Always know when your projects hit a roadblock using task dependencies.

Dashboards and insights: Visualize progress with real-time reporting and insights on a custom dashboard.

Pricing

• Free plan: Free Forever
• Unlimited plan: $5 per user/month
• Business plan: $12 per user/month 
• Business Plus plan: $19 per user/month 
• Enterprise plan: Contact for pricing

4. Jira

Jira is an issue-tracking software created by Atlassian that enables Agile project management.

Key features for task prioritization

Task prioritization: Jira includes default task priority settings (Highest, High, Medium, Low, and Lowest.) You can add priority to projects, adjust the defaults, and create new default settings.

Scrum boards: Scrum management helps teams break large tasks into manageable chunks of work.

Timeline views: Visualize workflows with Jira’s timeline view and track project progress throughout the pipeline.

Reports and insights: Like other tools on this list, Jira lets you access reports and dashboards to gain insights into what your team is working on.

Pricing

• Free plan: Free for up to ten users 
• Standard plan: $7.75 per user/month (estimated)
• Premium plan: $15.25 per user/month (estimated)
• Enterprise plan: Contact Jira’s sales team for pricing

5. Asana

Asana is a customizable project management tool perfect for managing projects, tasks, and people.

Key features for task prioritization

Task prioritization: Assign task priorities for each task in Asana to improve your team’s workflow. Or, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, use Asana’s workflow builder to create automated workflows.

Kanban and Gantt views: Use Gantt charts and Kanban boards to organize your tasks and move them through the pipeline.

Reporting: Ensure deadlines are on track with detailed reports and insights on any project in your workplace.

Workflow builder: Assemble automated workflows to keep your team on track.

Pricing

• Basic plan: Free
• Premium plan: $13.49 per user/month
• Business plan: $30.49 per user/month

6. Trello

Trello is one of the original Kanban-based task management tools. The simple workflow manager allows teams to prioritize tasks, set deadlines, and move projects through a pipeline.

Key features for task prioritization

Drag and drop editor: Easily move tasks through the pipeline with Trello’s drag and drop editor and Kanban boards. Use each task card’s placement within your board to establish priority.

Power-ups: With Trello’s Screenful Power-Up, you can set priorities for your cards to prioritize your work.

Butler automation: Automate task reminders and notifications to keep your team in the loop.

Pricing

• Free plan: Free
• Standard plan: $6 per user/month
• Premium plan: $12.50 per user/month
• Enterprise plan: Visit Trello’s pricing page for a price breakdown per user

Final thoughts

Taking control of your time is essential for businesses — especially those planning to grow. Nailing your task prioritization can help your team reduce burnout, meet deadlines, and keep stakeholders happy.

But we know prioritizing your tasks is no easy feat; that’s why using a tool built to improve this process is the ultimate productivity hack. Give these tools a try and find the one that works best for you and your team.