🚩 Tactical Memo 039: The Hidden Cost of Too Many “Important” Projects

Read time: 4 minutes

Welcome to Tactical Memo, my newsletter where I share clear lessons and simple systems for people who run projects, lead teams, and make decisions.

If you want practical guidance you can use at work this week, you are in the right place.

👉 Why Read This Edition: You’ll see why having too many “important” projects slows everything down, even when everyone is working hard, and what you can change right now to get work moving again.

What This Edition Covers

1. Why does everything start to feel important

2. What too many projects quietly cost you

3. How focus gets lost without anyone noticing

4. What to change this week

5. Go from task manager to AI-Powered Project Leader

Don’t miss my latest training….

Project management is changing fast in 2026, and not in the way most PMs expect.

In 2026, our field is being stripped down to its core. Coordination. Status updates. Chasing tasks. That work is disappearing fast.

I just released a video breaking down the AI trends that are killing traditional PM roles, based on insights from Gartner, Forrester, PMI, and CES 2026.

In this episode, I cover:

• Why AI hype is over, and ROI is the only thing that matters now

• How AI agents are replacing execution and coordination work

• Why “information-passing PMs” are becoming irrelevant

• The skills that do survive automation

• How strong PMs move upstream into decision-shaping roles

This isn’t about learning more tools. It’s about deciding whether you stay a task manager or become a decision-maker.

If you work in project delivery and want to stay valuable over the next five years, this is worth your time.

Watch the video here

Where Things Break

I see this pattern everywhere. Every project gets labeled important. Every request sounds reasonable. Saying yes feels helpful. Saying no feels risky.

At first, things look fine. Work starts fast. Teams stay busy. Calendars fill up.

Then progress slows.

People jump between tasks. Meetings grow. Decisions wait. Deadlines slip. Teams feel tired, but very little finishes. Leaders ask for more updates, which creates more work instead of clarity.

This isn’t a motivation problem. It isn’t a skill problem.

This happens when focus breaks.

Too many important projects fight for the same time, energy, and decisions. The cost stays hidden at first, but it grows every week.

The Operating Rule

A real priority means one thing moves forward while something else pauses.

When everything moves at the same time, nothing moves well. Avoiding hard choices pushes the cost onto teams. Clear focus creates speed. Too much work creates drag.

Execution Moves

1. Treat attention as the real bottleneck, not capacity
Most leaders think the problem is time or headcount. It isn’t. The real bottleneck is attention. When people split attention across too many projects, quality drops long before effort does.

Example:
A team says they are at full capacity, yet no project is moving. Not because they lack skills, but because every day starts with context switching. One hour here. Thirty minutes there. Nothing gets deep focus. You cut the number of active projects in half. No new hires. No overtime. Output improves because attention stops fragmenting.

How you use this:
List every project pulling attention this week. Ask which ones actually deserve uninterrupted focus. Pause the rest.

2. Stop calling work “important” if it has no finish line
Many projects feel important because they are ongoing. Dashboards, reports, improvements, cleanups. They never end, so they always compete for attention.

Example:
A “process improvement” project has been active for nine months. It keeps meetings alive but never finishes. You force a finish line. Either ship a version by a date or stop the work. The pressure to finish reveals whether the work mattered at all.

How you use this:
For each project, ask what “done” actually means. If no one can answer, the work is not a project. It is noise.

3. Use delay as a test of real priority
Urgency is often emotional, not logical. Delaying work is one of the fastest ways to see what truly matters.

Example:
A stakeholder insists their request is critical. You say it will start in thirty days. If the request disappears, it was never a priority. If it escalates with clear impact, now you have signal instead of noise.

How you use this:
Delay one new request on purpose. Watch what happens. The reaction tells you everything.

4. Make starting work harder than stopping it
Most teams start projects easily and stop them painfully. That imbalance creates overload.

Example:
A team can start a new initiative with a quick approval, but stopping one requires a long justification. Over time, work piles up. You flip the rule. Starting work now requires a clear impact statement. Stopping work requires a simple reason. Overload drops fast.

How you use this:
Add one gate before starting new work. Remove one barrier to stopping old work.

5. Protect teams from “executive curiosity”
Not all leadership questions are priorities. Some are curiosity disguised as urgency.

Example:
An executive asks for a quick analysis. The team treats it as a project. Two weeks later, the executive has moved on. You begin asking one clarifying question: “Is this a decision you plan to make.” If the answer is no, the work waits.

How you use this:
Before acting on a request, ask what decision it supports. No decision means no project.

6. Measure finished outcomes, not busy weeks
Busy teams feel productive. Finished teams create value. Too many projects keep teams busy and leaders blind.

Example:
A team reports full calendars and long hours, yet nothing ships. You shift the conversation from effort to finishes. What completed this month. What actually closed. Suddenly, half the work looks unnecessary.

How you use this:
At the end of the week, list what finished. Not what started. Not what moved. What finished.

7. Accept that saying yes feels good and costs more later
Leaders often approve work to be helpful. The cost shows up later as burnout, missed deadlines, and quiet failure.

Example:
A leader approves every reasonable request. Six months later, teams feel overwhelmed and leadership is frustrated. You change one habit. Every yes now requires naming what slows down. Approval drops. Results improve.

How you use this:
Before approving work, say this sentence out loud: “If we add this, what slows down.”

What to Do This Week

• Write down every active project. Keep the list honest.

• Circle the top three. These get full focus.

• Pause one project today. Say it clearly and calmly.

• Delay one new request. Ask what can wait.

• Say this sentence out loud: “If we add this, what slows down.”

• Protect one block of team focus this week. No new work enters.

Reducing work is one of the fastest ways to improve results.

Related Insight

I just released a video breaking down the AI trends that are killing traditional PM roles, based on insights from Gartner, Forrester, PMI, and CES 2026.

If you work in project delivery and want to stay valuable over the next five years, this is worth your time.

Watch the video here

The Upgrade

I want to share a quick note I received from a past student:

That’s the point of the AI-Powered Project Management cohort.

Not to help you chase tools.
Not to help you memorize frameworks.

But to make you harder to ignore, harder to replace, and easier to say “yes” to.

This course starts on February 2.

AI will handle up to 80% of traditional PM work by 2030. The question isn’t if the role changes. It’s whether you do first. Join the top 1% of AI-powered leaders shaping how work gets done, while others are still managing tasks.

 Join now to secure your spot:
https://maven.com/justinbateh/pmcertificate

If this helped you, send it to someone who could use it this week.

Until next time,
Justin

✍️ From the Desk of Justin Bateh, PhD
Simple tactics. Real results. No fluff.