Prioritize Work with the $10 Game
When everything feels urgent, it can be hard to prioritize work. Use the $10 Game to shift your team’s focus from busy work to breakthroughs.
PREP TIME
0m
Run TIME
20m
Persons
1-2
5-second summary
- Use the $10 Game to budget your time with intention and prioritize work that matters most each week.
- Block time on your calendar to make sure your schedule supports where you want to focus.
- Check in with your manager regularly to stay aligned, and make small shifts to stay on track.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
- Shared document, like a Confluence page or whiteboard
- Calendar tool, such as Google Calendar or Outlook
- AI tool, such as Atlassian’s Rovo or your preferred AI tool
PLAY resources
How to prioritize work with the $10 Game
When everything feels urgent, the $10 Game helps prioritize work and focus your time where it matters most.
What is the $10 Game?
The $10 Game encourages us to budget our time like we budget our money. It’s an exercise that helps clarify priorities and increase productivity.
The game allocates a limited "budget" of $10 to a week’s worth of work. Then, you consciously decide how to “spend” that budget across all assigned tasks or projects – helping prioritize high-impact work over urgent, low-value tasks.
Why prioritize work with the $10 Game?
“Urgent” requests and shifting tasks often pull focus away from high-value projects. Playing the $10 Game can help you:
- Feel clearer on goals and more confident you’re prioritizing the right tasks
- Better align with your manager
- Make better progress on your top priorities
When should you play the $10 Game?
This Play is most helpful to run when you feel spread across too many tasks or unclear on priorities.
3 benefits of prioritizing work with the $10 Game
When Atlassian ran a study to test the impact of the $10 Game, we found it helped teams gain clarity, align with their managers, and make progress on what matters most.
- Increased goal clarity and confidence in priorities
After playing the $10 Game, goal clarity among direct reports rose by 9%, with 88% of participants reporting a clear understanding of their weekly goals – a significant increase from the previous week. Notably, direct reports also felt a 27% boost in confidence that they had prioritized the right tasks. - Higher team alignment
Transparent goals ensure every team’s work is aligned with company priorities. After playing the $10 Game, alignment between managers and direct reports increased by 23%, specifically regarding how direct reports spent their time. Direct reports felt more in sync with their managers on task prioritization, and 88% of managers agreed they had a clearer understanding of their direct reports’ focus that week. - Accelerated progress on top priorities
After playing, 91% of direct reports agreed that they made progress on top priorities – an increase of 38%. This shows that knowing what to focus on – and focusing on fewer tasks at a time – boosts progress and enables better decision-making.
1. List and log your work
Est. time: 5 MIN
Make a complete list of your week’s tasks – both big and small – in a shared document (like a Confluence page), or ask your AI tool of choice (like Rovo) to draft a list by pulling likely tasks from your calendar, Jira issues, and recent Slack threads.
Review the list for accuracy, and include anything that needs immediate attention or delivers high value to your team or organization.
2. Distribute your $10
Est. time: 5 MIN
Split the $10 budget across your weekly tasks or projects, allocating more money to the ones that require more time. For a 40-hour workweek, $1 equals 4 hours, and $2 equals a full eight-hour day. Adjust accordingly if you work different hours.
Keep in mind:
- Spend more on high-impact, deep-focus work.
- Don’t forget meetings, out-of-office time, and reactive work, like responding to Slack messages.
- You only get $10. Some tasks won’t make the cut this week, and that’s okay. Prioritization is the whole point!
- Aim for mostly whole-dollar increments, and use halves or quarters sparingly. The goal is to narrow your to-do list and dedicate the majority of your time to a handful of top priorities. Make every dollar – and every hour – count.
| Yes: Concentrated on top priorities and high-impact, focused work | No: Spread too thin, without enough time for top priorities |
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TIP: Don’t spread yourself too thin
If you have a lot of half dollars and quarters, make sure you still have enough time to tackle your top priorities while making meaningful progress on the small tasks. If not, reallocate time to the top priorities and/or push the smaller tasks to the following week.
3. Share and align with your manager
Est. time: 5 min
Once you prioritize work for the week, share those plans with your manager in a Slack or Teams message, a video message using a tool like Loom, or in your next meeting with them. Make adjustments together if needed. You can use AI to draft this message and summarize your top priorities, trade‑offs, and where you want feedback.
TIP: Add this to your meeting agenda
If you already have a one-on-one scheduled with your manager – especially if you meet with them towards the beginning of each week – add a recurring agenda item to review your plans for the week. This creates a habit of assessing priorities and prioritizing work as preparation for that meeting.
4. Update your calendar accordingly
Est. time: 5 min
Make sure your calendar reflects your $10 plan. Do you have time reserved for your top three priorities? Is there enough space for deep work and collaboration? Use the Redesign Your Calendar Play to organize and time-block your calendar accordingly.
5. Reflect, adjust, and repeat
Est. time: 20 min
At the end of the week, review plans vs. reality. Ask AI for a quick comparison of what you planned in your $10 Game vs. what you actually did (referring to your calendar, project management system, communication app, etc.), or ask yourself:
- Did unexpected tasks come up?
- Did anything take more or less time than expected?
Did I make as much progress as I needed to on my highest priorities?
Use what you learned to plan next week’s budget. You may also want to share your learnings and updated plans with your manager.
Sample prompt using Atlassian’s Rovo:
Create a concise weekly work summary by analyzing my activity across my calendar, Atlassian apps, and Slack.
First, analyze how I actually spent my time based on my activity, and compare it to the $10 Game budget I set at the beginning of the week.
Highlight where my time matched the plan and where it deviated, such as when new urgent priorities or unexpected work came up.
Then, write a short summary of meaningful progress I made during the past 7 days. The summary should be 3–5 bullet points, where each bullet:
- Has 10 words max
- Describes one work accomplishment or area of progress
- Uses action-oriented language (completed, launched, resolved, decided, etc.)
Focuses on results rather than activities
Finally, add 3–5 lessons learned I can apply to future $10 budgets, such as:
- Whether I protected time for non‑urgent but high‑impact work
- Where tasks took more or less time than I expected
- How I might adjust my time budget next week based on these insights
Still have questions?
Start a conversation with other Atlassian Team Playbook users, get support, or provide feedback.
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