Our kids wanted to plant pumpkin seeds beside the broccoli in the garden boxes this year. They are amazed at how large (and spiky!) the pumpkin plants are growing. Too large in fact. This weekend I pruned off various leaves and branches to give the broccoli a chance. Much to the dismay of the kids, I even took off a few of the little pumpkins so the ones remaining could grow bigger.

And while ‘painful’, I can hear a collective sigh of relief being uttered by the broccoli and the remaining pumpkins. Pruning the pumpkin leaves by the broccoli allow the broccoli to receive more sunlight and more space to spread out properly. In fact the removal of the leaves will change the entire ‘posture’ of the broccoli plants. Removing some of the little pumpkins, help the pumpkin plant focus its efforts on nourishing and growing the remaining pumpkins.

In our projects, are we clear on where our focus needs to be – what are the core branches and which are interesting side projects? Perhaps the side projects need to be shut down so the core project can be completed? Has one project been growing so big it is taking resources unnecessarily from other projects? Would the other projects benefit from a bit more space to fill?

And maybe it’s time to embrace the original use of the word priority, which had no plural version. Priority is the thing deemed more important than everything else. If we have more than one, we don’t have one.

Photo by Jocelyn Maloney