I recently struggled with what seemed like a basic interview question: "You have several pieces of work in progress. How do you decide which one to work on first?" I understood that they were testing how I handle competing priorities, but I answered too philosophically and mentioned that taking a walk can help clear my head. My broader concern is that having too many tasks in flight may indicate a planning or management problem in the first place. What would be a strong interview answer to this question, and how do you handle competing priorities in your day-to-day work?
4 Answers
In an interview, I’d explain that I make the competing work visible, estimate the effort and deadlines, identify dependencies, and rank the items by impact and urgency. I would then confirm the order with my manager or stakeholders, communicate what will be delayed, and revisit the list regularly as circumstances change. I’d also look for opportunities to delegate, reduce scope, or push back on lower-value requests rather than silently accepting everything.
A practical rule is to keep track of approaching deadlines, then combine deadline pressure with priority and complexity. High-priority tasks that are quick to finish are useful wins, but I would not let easy tasks displace important work indefinitely. The key is having a repeatable system and communicating trade-offs instead of trying to keep every project moving equally.
A solid approach is to compare each task by urgency and impact. Handle work that is both urgent and important first, then use impact to break ties when several items have similar deadlines. In practice, you also need to confirm what “urgent” means, since some workplaces label everything that way.
Start with the organization’s priorities and any agreed process rather than inventing your own ranking. Look at deadlines, business impact, dependencies, and who is blocked. Work that is preventing another person, team, or external party from making progress can often be the best thing to tackle first, even if it is not the largest task.
That’s the tricky part: if every request is called urgent, the labels stop being useful. I’d ask what happens if each item is delayed and which outcome matters most to the business.