Prioritisation: knowing when work no longer deserves more time
Time management methods often explain how to organise work that has been selected, but less often how to withdraw from work already underway. The managerial question is specific: how can we decide whether to devote more time to an activity without letting the time already invested dictate the decision?
What the literature establishes
Hal R. Arkes and Catherine Blumer (1985, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes) show that prior investment of money, effort or time can strengthen the tendency to continue an activity. Their research describes the sunk cost effect: what has already been spent influences a decision that should concern future costs and benefits. For prioritisation, the distinction is essential: an activity does not become more useful tomorrow because it occupied much of the team's time yesterday.
When responsibility encourages persistence
Barry M. Staw (1976, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance) experimentally examines resource allocation following unfavourable results. In his study, participants personally responsible for the initial decision commit more additional resources than those who do not bear that responsibility. This finding suggests that reviewing priorities can also become a defence of a past decision, rather than an assessment of the work's future value.
The hasty conclusion
One might conclude that every disappointing project should be stopped, or that decisions should always be assigned to an outsider. These studies establish neither as a general rule. Future exit costs, contractual obligations or new information may justify continuing; the challenge is to distinguish them from the argument that “we have already spent too much time on this to stop”. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What these findings cannot decide
The research settings do not reproduce the full complexity of a project portfolio, particularly its dependencies and regulatory constraints. They cannot quantify the hours a Zurich team would save by reviewing its commitments. In practice, a full calendar cannot distinguish a commitment that remains necessary from an activity maintained mainly to justify the past.
A practical check in Zurich
As part of SHR's “Time Management & Prioritisation” programme, a Zurich team in financial services, insurance, tech or a European headquarters can trial a commitment review over two weeks. For each activity within a scope defined at the outset, the team records a decision — continue, reduce or stop —, its forward-looking rationale, an owner and an allocation of hours for the following week. The measure is the proportion of activities within that scope with all four elements documented, verifiable in the review register and work schedule. This rate measures the traceability of decisions, not a productivity gain; it nevertheless makes visible activities whose continuation still lacks an explicit justification. To go further: explore the Time Management & Prioritisation training in Zurich, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Time Management & Prioritisation in Zurich
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