We have issues that are not critical enough to solve today, but they sit on our weekly Issues List for months because we are afraid of losing them. How do we clean this up?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A weekly Issues List that is cluttered with stale, low-priority items is a major source of meeting friction. When the same minor issues sit on your list for months, they distract the team from the critical challenges that require real attention.

To keep your list fresh, you must implement a system of categorization. In EOS®, we use different compartments to organize our challenges. If an issue is not critical to solve this week or even this quarter, it does not belong on your short-term Issues List.

Clean up your weekly list by using these rules:

- During your monthly or quarterly review, actively purge the short-term Issues List.

- If an issue has sat on the list for more than three weeks without being prioritized for IDS®, ask the team if it is truly an issue. If it is not, delete it.

- If it is a real issue but not urgent, move it to your long-term Issues List on the V/TO®. This acts as a healthy parking lot, ensuring the idea is not lost but is kept out of your weekly view.

By maintaining a clean, prioritized weekly list, you ensure your leadership team is focused on the highest-impact items every single week.