Systems

The Cascade Priority System

August 1, 2026·9 min read·issue #026

If you have been juggling 3 jobs at the same time and you have not been successful at it, you are not lazy, you just need a better system.

One problem most people have now is the ability to focus on one task for a long period of time. A job well done only comes from the ability to focus on one thing. Most can't focus for 15 minutes before they grab their phone or open their email to see if they're missing something. I understand it is hard, I know, but it has never been easier to move faster as well.

We all have the same 24 hours a day. Some just know how to use theirs better than others, doesn't mean they work harder than you, just that they manage their energy and time more than you do.

Meet Owol Destiny, yeah that's me, a very not successful one-person business owner, who juggles 3 jobs at the same time and has only one four-hour block to decide which one wins for the day. But how do I know which job to focus on for that day? That is the issue I have had for months, and I end up not getting things done.

I've seen people's scattered work, multitasking, they call it. It doesn't work. You end up spending 3x the time than you should and getting things done poorly, or you end up procrastinating.

I heard this from someone, and I think it's true: "without rules humans are no different from animals."

A few rules that I have been using to get things done and move faster than most people. I'll share most of them in this letter and also something new I started using to move the needle daily.

One Day, Four Hours, One Work

This rule I call one for one. I know my energy is through the roof in the morning, so I do not want to waste that. That is why I do not use those first four hours for anything that doesn't move the needle. This is my focus block.

The first four hours are only used for my most important tasks, like writing this newsletter, shipping WritePat, and working for clients. These are the most important tasks I can do in a day and call it a productive day.

Not knowing your priority is why you think checking your email or opening social media should be the first thing you do.

This rule helps me stay focused on one thing per day. I've tried doing more than one top priority task in a day, it ends up pushed to the next day, or I lose focus because I want to work on both at once. Now, I only work on one top priority task a day.

My work is categorized into three:

Client Day
Content Day
App Day

I only do them in that order. If I have lots of client work that will take about 12 hours, I do it for 3 days straight. My body will focus on just client work. When I am done with client work, the next thing I focus on is content work for the week. This might take 8 hours, I split it into 2 days, and then I focus on app work. Sometimes it takes a week for me to batch and focus on just one type of work.

This has been one of the best things I have been doing, and it has been making me move faster than I can imagine. This newsletter is the 5th I have written for myself this week alone. I have been focused on newsletters for the past 3 days, I'm into the 9th hour right now, and I have 5 newsletters already. By day 5 I will have 9 newsletters, which will cover the whole month. WritePat will then repurpose that into my social media posts for the month, and that will take me less than 30 minutes to get slotted into the calendar on WritePat. Then I can spend the rest of the month focusing on the rest of the work.

Most solopreneurs try to touch everything every day: a little client work, a little content work, a little product work, and end up not moving an inch. It feels like you are being productive, but you are not. It feels like that is how real work is done, and I do not blame you. I thought so for a long time: opening 10 tabs at once, quickly checking Twitter, maybe, just maybe my followers have increased, or that person I messaged sent a reply.

Scattered work sometimes feels balanced. It feels responsible. What if someone messages you but you didn't reply early? The truth is that you can't get anything big done that way. You need to prioritize your work and pick just one thing in the morning and get that done.

Never 50/50/50

Someone once commented on my content on LinkedIn saying, what about 50/50 across a day. That split never really works for me, because when I am working on task A, my mind is already thinking about task B, which will make the result of task A poor. The effect will be less if they are in the same category. You can't juggle two things and get perfect results.

I want to be able to get at least one thing well done in the morning, that is why I pick one, and sometimes I pick the same one for the whole week, yes I do that sometimes. It is efficient and helps me have the next week for something else entirely.

When you change focus, part of your brain is still working on the last task. That is why if I am coding, I want to spend the four hours on just coding. I have never seen a successful person who likes to do multiple tasks in the morning, they always pick one and focus on that.

My tasks go in a very strict order of who wins first, every time, so I never have to relitigate the decision under pressure. A hierarchy of work always gives better results than trying to balance your work.

How the Hierarchy Works

Client Day: This one always wins the first block. I won't be able to write the newsletter if I can't feed myself, so money in the door funds everything else. I got this wrong in the beginning, I thought doing content should be number one, but I later realized that I work more effectively when I do not have to worry about paying my house rent or eating. So for now, client work always comes first. Sometimes this might take more than 4 days a week, while sometimes it takes just one day, four hours a week, which is fine. But I always get it done first in the week so I can focus on the rest of the work.

The client work is not non-negotiable: sometimes when I get a new client project, I put it to next week, but client work will be the first work I do that week, starting on Monday.

Content Day: This is a mechanism that compounds. It's second on my list. I can only work on this when I am done with client work for the week. Before, I only batched my social content with the amazing random slotting in WritePat, but now I also batch create my newsletter. Whenever I have an idea, I just write it in the scratchpad on WritePat, and when I am ready to batch content, I pick the ideas I want to use, outline them, and start writing each newsletter. One newsletter takes me within 2–3 hours, so I write about 3+ newsletters in 2 days. On Sundays, I spend like 30 minutes repurposing my newsletter into 4 social posts across platforms at once on WritePat and schedule them all with one click of a button.

App Day: I intentionally place it at the end of everything else. It's a temptation for me, when I start working on this, I find it hard to stop. Probably because it's mine, so I have the freedom to build it the way I want. I write code as much as I love writing this newsletter, if not more. App work is a trap I try to avoid until I am done with the rest, because when I start doing app work, I hardly want to do anything else. This is the easiest way to justify skipping client work, which is exactly why it's ranked last, so when I'm done with everything else, I can focus on this and this alone.

When the System Almost Failed

A system sometimes needs you to be disciplined enough to do the right thing.

Three weeks ago, I should have been working on client work. I woke up excited for a feature I wanted to ship for WritePat, so when I opened Notion to pick the work of the day, the Client Day was the first tab. Then I realized I had to do client work for that 4-hour block, the log made me confront the order before I could talk myself out of it.

It's just rules. As long as I follow the rules, I always have a product day.

Rule one - states that I can never do anything other than Client Day if there is any task on that tab, and I can't work on App Day if there are tasks on Content Day.

Rule two - states that whenever I have anything I should work on that is not in the plan of the day: if it's urgent, I add it to the right category for the week, not that day. If it's not urgent, I add it to the right category for the coming week(s).

Rule three - I do two four-hour session blocks in the day: four hours deep work first thing in the morning and four hours shallow work in the afternoon. The rule states I shouldn't work more than four hours in the morning. There is always tomorrow.

I fill weeks' tabs ahead of time. This way, I do not wake up thinking of what to do, because I always default to App work, so making the plan 2–3 weeks ahead helps me get things done instead of just planning.

We all know what to do, that hasn't been a problem for most of you. The issue isn't the priorities we want to pursue, but rather the system that ranks them and the rules that hold people accountable.

You do not need more systems. You only need a system that holds you accountable and keeps you going for months. Some people keep changing systems and apps, thinking that is what they lack, but they need a simple system that holds up even in the hard times.

Before you go to bed today, write your own three-item cascade in order somewhere you'll see it before you open your laptop. Not a to-do list. A hierarchy of how you want to work everything every day, and attach similar rules to them. You will notice you will start getting done the things you said you will do, instead of doing the ones you didn't plan to do.

Most people don't lack priorities. They lack the courage to rank them. Do not be most people.

I read every reply, sometimes I reply to some. Reply with your own cascade, I'll read every one.

P.S. Write your three-item cascade tonight: Client, Content, App, or whatever your version looks like, and reply with it. I want to see how you rank yours.

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