Priority Creep: A Cautionary Tale

When the bar on "What Matters" keeps moving

Welcome to the Slow Take, my occasional newsletter about the strange beauty of being human. Huge thanks to my sister who, when I told her the story you’re about to read, said, “That sounds like a post!” Thanks, Kash-Kash and the Sound Boards!

Last Tuesday, I sat on my bed in a mono-like fatigue, scanning my bedroom of scattered clothes and an empty suitcase. Did I have the energy to pack for a writing conference, let alone attend it?

The conference was AWP—a massive annual gathering of writers. The week before, my family and I had gotten walloped by the flu. We were no longer feverish or contagious, but I still shuffled my feet no farther than a hallway before wanting to sit down. Could I get my tail to Kansas City? Could I manage airport security and hotel sleeping and convention center lighting in my exhausted state?

I waffled for a while, then decided to go. I told myself I wouldn’t try to do all the things. I would focus on what mattered.

And what mattered? It didn’t take long to figure it out. I was scheduled to present on two panels. I gave myself two priorities:

1. Deliver my two talks.

2. Take care of myself.

AWP is a conference with 7,904,513 events. There are panels on podcasts and crime fiction and how to structure a book-length essay. There are poetry readings and slam storytelling events and cocktail hours galore. What I’m saying is: AWP is the perfect place for FOMO.

I went. Airport adrenalin carried me through the first day. After a deliriously tired next day, I felt pretty good the rest of the trip. Because I hadn’t been well enough to finish my talks the week before, I needed and found pockets of time to finish them up. I took care of myself by eating overpriced breakfast buffets, massive salads, steaks. I was doing it! I was meeting my priorities.

And thus began what I call “Priority Creep.” You probably know what that is: when you set a priority, meet it, and then start eyeing other priorities. Because hey, there’s still more to want and have and try! Because hey, humanity is insatiable, and that’s why the Buddha sat under a tree for 8 days and realized our wanting and grasping would never quite satisfy.

It went like this: I’d bump into a writer-pal, and they’d tell me they just attended a panel that changed their life and gave them five book ideas.

My beautiful writing-pals, Katie Budris and Megan Atwood. I’m the middle one in yellow. We’re at the massive book fair.

I’d grab a sandwich with another writer-pal, and they’d report that we were within a mile of Anthony Bourdain’s “Must Eat Before You Die” BBQ joint, and I should totally go.

I’d hug another writer-pal, and they’d tell me that Travis and Taylor were a block away and they were dying to raise a glass with longform essayists. No, not that last thing. But yes, the other two.

So I started thinking things like: “I should do that! I should see more of this city that smells way better than Jersey. I should try to arrange lunch with so-and-so whose work I adore and whose brain I’d love to pick. I should attend just one more panel about writing longform essays!”

A few brilliant nonfiction writers, talking about research in memoir.

Priority creep.

I’ve been living in this body/mind/soul long enough to know I’m a sucker for this phenomenon. Priority creep can take an otherwise lovely experience and contort it into a dissatisfaction, even a failure. It can suddenly make you feel like the very good things you’ve received or achieved are “not enough.”

And not-enoughness is no fun, friends. And, also kind-of a lie.

My conference experience was more than enough. Does this ever happen to you? If so, here are my recommendations for managing priority creep:

First: Have a priority in the first place.

Choose one or two priorities based on a.) your needs, b.) your desires, and c.) your context. Using the conference as an example, maybe another writer would want to “be inspired with a book project.” In that case, they’d find good panels and readings to attend. But this year, I had talks to give, and an illness to get over. So finding inspiration couldn’t be my goal.

Second: Remind yourself of your priority.

Name it. Write it down if you have to. Screenshot it and put it on your phone’s home screen. Or tape a piece of paper to your mirror.

Third: Name your bonuses.

In other words, name the other things you wish *could* be your priorities, but can’t right now. I love being inspired by a conference, but I was lucky to even be there. So when Melissa Febos uttered a brilliant, off-the-cuff sentence that might just carry me through months of writing, I said to myself, “Bonus!” and remembered not to go chasing more inspiration.

Fourth: When/if you find yourself moving the bar on your priorities, take note.

Gently remind yourself of your priority. Respond accordingly. “Oh, look. I’m pacing the streets in search of Travis and Taylor. This was not my plan. Let me check in with my body and figure out dinner.” (I’m neither a Chiefs fan or a pop music fan, folks, but I have a 10-year-old who was pretty stoked about my conference destination.)

Some of this thinking comes from Kendra Adachi’s “Name what matters” principal in her book, The Lazy Genius Way. Some of it comes from minimalist Greg McKeown. In his book, Essentialism, Mckeown tells the story of Southwest Airlines. When it began, it unabashedly announced itself as a budget airline, and didn’t try to be anything else. No assigned seating. People scrambling for seats. Jokester flight attendants giving unpretentious announcements. When airlines were sinking, the new Southwest soared. So, other airlines tried to follow suit—but they also tried to maintain a luxury ethos. They tried to straddle the impression that they could be two things at once: budget and luxury. The ones that did that flopped. Southwest went strong.

The thing about priority creep is that it can sabotage your actual priority. By chasing too many goals, we can get lost and find ourselves reaching none.

I think we will always be tempted to want more, more, more. That’s why I’ve covered the apple logo on my laptop with a sticker that reads Good Enough. (Thanks, Kate Bowler!)

How about you? Have you ever experienced priority creep? Do you have your own way of dealing with it?

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Notes & Tidbits:

• AWP was truly lovely. Here’s a photo of the standing-room only crowd at the panel I moderated, “The Hybrid Memoir: Weaving Research with Personal Narrative,” which featured the amazing nonfiction writers, Catina Bacote, Daisy Hernandez, Sonya Huber, and Jennifer Lunden.

  

• Social media can sometimes instigate priority creep. I’m currently working on a Substack post about trying to form a “right relationship” with social media, especially as an author. Stay tuned for more….

• Look at all these beautiful books I bought at AWP! Can I stop everything and spend a week reading? Has anyone ever taken a reading vacation? I never have, but a writer-pal of mine once did, and it sounded delicious.