LNO Prioritize
Most PMs waste time on overhead disguised as strategy.
This skill categorizes your backlog by actual impact:
- Leverage (L): 10x impact - the work that actually matters
- Neutral (N): Regular work - do it well enough, move on
- Overhead (O): Busywork - minimize or automate
Then tells you if your time allocation is broken.
Works with:
- Linear MCP - Auto-analyzes and labels your issues
- GitHub MCP - Auto-analyzes and labels your issues
- Manual - Paste your issue list
Entry Point
When this skill is invoked, start with:
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LNO PRIORITIZATION
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Are you spending 60%+ time on Leverage work?
Most PMs aren't.
What do you want to analyze?
1. Current sprint/cycle
→ I'll fetch and categorize all active issues
2. Specific team or project
→ Focus on a subset of your backlog
3. Paste issue list
→ I'll categorize what you provide
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What This Does
Categorizes every issue, then challenges your priorities:
- Are you spending 60%+ time on Leverage work? (You should be)
- Is "strategy work" actually Overhead disguised as important?
- Which Neutral tasks can you delegate or do at B- quality?
- Which Overhead tasks can you eliminate entirely?
Usage
/lno-prioritize
Optional parameters:
/lno-prioritize --team [team-name]- Categorize specific team's issues/lno-prioritize --project [project-name]- Categorize specific project/lno-prioritize --label- Auto-add Linear labels (leverage/neutral/overhead)/lno-prioritize --current-sprint- Only analyze current sprint issues
What Happens
- Fetches issues from Linear or GitHub (if MCPs configured)
- Applies LNO framework
- Categorizes each issue based on:
- Strategic importance
- Impact potential
- Time investment required
- Compounding value
- Returns analysis with:
- Issue title and ID
- LNO category assignment
- Reasoning for categorization
- Recommended time allocation
- Optionally updates source with labels (if
--labelflag used and using Linear)
Example Output
📊 LNO Prioritization Results
🚀 LEVERAGE (10x impact - be a perfectionist):
- [ENG-245] Rebuild recommendation engine
Reason: Core product differentiator, compounds over time
- [ENG-198] Product strategy for Q2
Reason: Foundational decision affecting all downstream work
📈 NEUTRAL (Regular impact - do good enough work):
- [ENG-301] Update onboarding flow copy
Reason: Important but not transformational
- [ENG-276] Add analytics to checkout page
Reason: Useful data but incremental improvement
⚙️ OVERHEAD (Minimal impact - do quickly):
- [ENG-312] Reformat PRD template
Reason: Administrative work, no strategic value
- [ENG-288] Update Linear labels
Reason: Organizational cleanup
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📊 YOUR TIME ALLOCATION IS BROKEN
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Current backlog:
- 2 Leverage tasks (20%)
- 4 Neutral tasks (40%)
- 4 Overhead tasks (40%)
TARGET allocation:
- 60% Leverage (you're at 20% - way too low)
- 30% Neutral
- 10% Overhead (you're at 40% - way too high)
WHAT TO DO:
1. **Kill or delegate 3 of 4 Overhead tasks**
- Reformatting templates? Not your job.
- Linear labels? Automate it.
2. **Stop perfectionism on Neutral work**
- Onboarding copy doesn't need to be perfect
- Ship at B- quality and move on
3. **Focus on Leverage:**
- Recommendation engine = your #1 priority
- Q2 strategy = your #2 priority
- Everything else can wait
Want me to create Linear issues to delegate/automate the Overhead work?
Integration Options
With Linear MCP: Automatically fetches Linear issues and can add L/N/O labels.
With GitHub MCP: Automatically fetches GitHub issues and can add labels.
Manual mode: Paste your issues and the skill will categorize them:
Apply the LNO framework to these issues: [paste issue list]
Learn More
See the full LNO Prioritization framework at:
frameworks/planning/lno-prioritization.md
Framework: Aakash Gupta (based on Shreyas Doshi) Best for: Sprint planning, backlog grooming, time management AI-era adaptation: Focus on leverage work (vision, strategy) while AI handles neutral/overhead tasks