Day 8 of "The 10 Days and Nights Until New Year!" — a shout-out to the amazing people in independent restaurants AND bars who absolutely smash it during the busiest time of the year.
Right, by the time you're done reading this, you'll be able to:
- Figure out what really matters when everything's going wrong, using the Must/Should/Could system.
- Use the Daily Triage trick to nail the 20% of tasks that give you 80% of the results (because who has time for the other 80%?).
- Take these super-prioritisation skills and use them everywhere – parenting, work, even relationships. Seriously.
The Wake-Up Call: 7:23 AM, Monday
"Dave here, from Ashworth Meats. Gutted to tell you, but our fridge went kaput overnight. That New Year's Eve order... yeah, can't do it."
Maria, head chef, just stared at her phone.
New Year's Eve. 150 punters. Swanky five-course menu. £150 a head. Booked solid since October.
And the beef wellington, the star of the show? The lamb alternative? Ruined.
Two days to go.
The Talent: Time Wizard
A Time Wizard doesn't flap around trying to do everything. They zoom in on the 20% of stuff that gives 80% of the result, and they guard that like gold.
Maria had a choice:
Option A: Proper freak out. Try to recreate the original plan no matter what. Ring every supplier for miles. Work the team to death. Kill everyone's vibe before the biggest night of the year.
Option B: Channel her inner Time Wizard. Accept the old plan's toast. Decide what's really important. Build a new plan, quick.
She went for B.
The First Half Hour
By 8 AM, Maria had three lists:
Must Have (No Excuses):
- Top-notch protein for 150 main courses.
- New source sorted by 4 PM today (that's a 24-hour safety net).
- Team morale kept high for NYE itself.
Should Have (Important, but Wiggle Room):
- Menu still feels fancy.
- Keep the original idea alive where we can.
- Keep the stress away from the team.
Could Have (Nice, but Bye Bye):
- Beef wellington. Specifically.
- Loyalty to the original supplier.
- Avoiding menu changes for people who've already booked.
The beef wellington – weeks of planning, the signature dish – ended up in the "Could Have" pile. Ouch.
That's what prioritising really means. Not trying to save everything. Letting go of the less important stuff to protect what matters most.
The Hustle
8:30 AM: Maria rang three other suppliers. One could get her aged duck breast for 160 people by tomorrow morning. Not beef, not lamb, duck.
9:00 AM: Menu rethink. Duck breast, cherry sauce, fancy root veg thing. Still posh. Still impressive. Just... different.
10:00 AM: Quick team chat. "Plan's changed. Here's what we're doing, and why. Any questions?"
No drama. No apologies. Just the facts.
11:00 AM: Email to everyone booked for NYE. "Excited to announce a special menu tweak for your New Year's Eve dinner – our chefs have bagged some amazing aged duck breast we just couldn't resist."
Not "our supplier messed up." Not "we're making do." A positive spin that was also true – the duck was top-notch, and they had to grab it to save the night.
2:00 PM: Prep schedule changed. Team reassigned. Some jobs got bumped to tomorrow morning.
4:00 PM: Supplier confirmed. Duck arriving at 7 AM on the 30th.
Crisis averted. Two days to actually do things, instead of panicking.
From Kitchen to Life
Being a Time Wizard is a skill you can take from hospitality and use everywhere.
Parenting: School calls – kid's sick. You've got three meetings and a deadline. The Time Wizard asks: Which meeting can move? Which bit of the deadline is bendy? What must happen today, and what can wait?
Work: Redundancy. Industry shifts. The job you trained for vanishes. The Time Wizard doesn't try to rewind. They spot the skills that transfer. They focus on the job applications that matter most. They ditch the dead-end options.
Relationships: A crisis hits – health scare, money worries, family drama. The Time Wizard separates urgent from important. They see what needs attention right now and what can hold on.
Daily Life: Every day's got more demands than hours. The Time Wizard doesn't beat themselves up about what they don't do. They feel good about what they do.
Time Wizard Toolkit
1. Quick Sort: Immediately tag everything as Must/Should/Could.
2. Guard the Essentials: Protect the Must-Haves like your life depends on it. Everything else is up for grabs.
3. Positive Spin: Frame changes as choices, not failures. The duck wasn't a backup – it was an upgrade.
4. Energy Saving: Time Wizards protect people's energy as much as they protect time. A knackered team on NYE would be worse than a different menu.
5. Quick Decisions: Slow decisions in a crisis make things worse. Move fast.
The Science Bit
Research says trying to protect everything equally means you end up protecting nothing well.
The Pareto principle – 80% of results come from 20% of effort – is spot on when things go wrong. The trick is knowing which 20% is the gold dust.
Hospitality teaches you this over and over. Every service is a mini-prioritising exercise. This table needs attention now. That order can wait a minute. This complaint is a fire. That request is important, but not a crisis.
After thousands of these choices, your brain gets good at prioritising, and that works anywhere.
Building Time Wizards
"What Would You Ditch?" Game
Give your team a fake problem: "We've got 4 hours to prep, but 6 hours of jobs. What doesn't get done?"
This makes prioritising normal. It stops people feeling guilty about letting things go.
The Daily Sort
Every morning, decide:
- The 3 things that MUST happen.
- The 5 things that SHOULD happen.
- Everything else.
If you only nail the 3 Musts, it's a win. Everything else is gravy.
The Post-Mortem
After things go wrong, ask:
- What did we prioritise well?
- What did we protect that didn't need it?
- What did we ditch that we could have saved?
This helps you spot patterns and get better at prioritising next time.
The Payoff
New Year's Eve. 150 guests turned up to a five-course menu they'd never seen before.
The aged duck breast with cherry sauce was, according to several reviews, "the best thing I ate all year."
Nobody mentioned beef wellington. Nobody asked about the old menu.
Maria stood at the pass at midnight, watching her team crack open some bubbly. They'd nailed it.
The supplier disaster had vanished. The crisis had been magicked away.
Three days later, Ashworth Meats rang to say sorry again and offer a discount. Maria said yes, nicely.
But she'd already added two backup suppliers to her phone.
Time Wizards learn from every hiccup.
Get To It
This Week
Play the "What Would You Ditch?" Game with your team: "4 hours of prep, 6 hours of jobs. What doesn't get done?" Make prioritising normal and ditch the guilt.
This Month
Start the Daily Sort every morning: 3 Must-Dos, 5 Should-Dos, everything else. If you only nail the 3 Musts, it's a win.
Always
After every crisis, do a Post-Mortem: What did we prioritise well? What did we protect that didn't need it? What did we ditch that we could have saved? Learn and improve.
Think About This
Before you tick this off, have a think:
- Your Turn: Think about a recent crisis at work or in your life. What did you prioritise? What did you ditch? Looking back, did you protect the right things?
- Where Are You Stuck? Where are you trying to protect everything equally? What if you picked just 3 "Must Have" goals and let everything else bend?
- Make a Promise: What's coming up where you can use the Must/Should/Could system? Write down your three Must-Haves right now.
Tomorrow in "The 10 Days and Nights Until New Year!": The Energizer — when a 14-hour pre-NYE shift threatens to break the team.
About this series: The 10 Days and Nights Until New Year! celebrates the skills that make independent restaurant AND bar teams amazing, and the life skills they learn along the way. From December 22nd to December 31st, we're looking at one essential hospitality skill each day.
Made with help from booteek.ai — the AI partner for independent restaurants AND bars.