Your Good Enough List
A founder I coach closed the biggest round of his career last year. Within a month, a hire he'd been counting on fell through, an acquisition opportunity landed on his desk, and a brand asset he'd wanted for years went up for sale.
The flood never ends. Even once you've sorted out what's your work and what isn't, once you've pulled back and untangled yourself from the weeds, you may still be left with three or four pressing priorities pulling you in different directions.
The question is no longer what matters, it all matters. You have to choose: out of all that important work, what do you ignore?
Most of us resist that choice. Instead, we juggle. This is the same impulse that resists delegation or puts off building the systems that will support you. Doing a little of everything, you get to avoid looking at your own limits. But in most cases, a slice of a week isn't enough to get anything to the point where you can call it good and walk away, so every priority stays in the condition where it still needs you.
If you don't choose what to put down, eventually the choice will be made for you. Exhausted from juggling, you'll drift toward the work you're best at, the work you know you can finish, and put down whatever you're least sure of.
In any single week, drifting isn't a problem. If you’re choosing between real priorities, whatever you choose will matter, and you'll do it well. But over time, if you keep choosing unconsciously, your company takes on your personal imbalance. If you came from product, you'll end up with a great product and no marketing. If you came from sales, you'll have a strong pipeline and a product that can't keep up.
Balance comes from choosing what to set down. That means keeping two lists. Your to-do list rests on a 'good enough' list filled with the important things you aren't doing right now.
Start by writing down everything pressing on you. The founder who closed his round had four: the executive hire to redo, the acquisition to diligence, the brand asset to buy or pass on, and the business itself, which still had a number to hit. Then work through four questions.
What's the most important thing for the business to achieve in the next 12 months?
This decides what's eligible for either list. At Alice, my EA company, it was $2M in revenue with the CEO spending no more than five hours a week getting there. If something doesn't move the 12-month goal, it doesn't belong on the to-do list or the good enough list.
Which priority makes the others easier?
Rather than asking what matters most, find the work that makes everything else easier.
When I'm starting something new, I go to product first. I build a quick version and test it with people to see if they want it. Marketing becomes much simpler once I’ve talked to real people, because the messaging comes from what they say. A founder I coach found the same shape inside her own build. One core piece of her software touched almost everything else, so every time she worked on the other parts in parallel, they tripped over each other. That piece wasn't more important, but building it first made the rest simple.
This is working in deep dives. You find the priority the others depend on and you go in hard, one mode at a time, until it's good enough to leave.
What does good enough look like?
Good enough isn't a feeling, it's a level you can write down. For each thing you're setting aside, name where it has to hold while you're not looking, and name the one thing that would pull it back onto your desk before you planned to look again.
What breaks us if it slips?
This is the one thing that never goes on the good enough list. At Joany, for two years, that was our Craigslist growth flywheel. It was the only way we acquired customers and the only way we made revenue. Everything else could wait a week, but never the flywheel.
These lists are not static. I think of running a company as tending two gardens, one in the backyard and one in the front. You get the back in good shape, leave it be, and turn to the front. After a while, the back will go untended or the season will change, and you’ll have to go back and work there for a while again. There's a dance to going back and forth, and I don't think it ever ends. The goal isn't to stop switching, it's to direct your attention on purpose.
I'm curious, what could you call good enough for now? And where would that let you focus instead? Hit reply and tell me. I read every message.
—Christine
If you want to go deeper
Here's where to start:
⚫️ Private Coaching: for early and growth-stage entrepreneurs who want to lead with more clarity while increasing their resiliency. See if we're a good fit here.
⚫️ The 20 Hour CEO Self-Paced Course: The frameworks, systems, and playbooks to stop being the bottleneck — on your schedule.
⚫️ The 20 Hour CEO Live Cohort: 3 weeks, 6 live sessions. Bring your actual business, rebuild how it runs, and leave with systems already in motion.