Sort your unsorted feedback
A short recurring pass that takes everything you captured since last time and gets the pile back to empty. Twenty minutes, once a week, is the whole habit.
Use this when
- You have collected signals during the week and the count is climbing.
- Check has started naming how long the oldest one has been waiting.
- A planning cycle is about to start and you want the input in one place.
What you need before starting
- Some captured requests in Items → Feedback inbox, or items at a status marked not on the roadmap yet — see Unsorted feedback.
- Twenty uninterrupted minutes. This goes badly in five-minute pieces.
Step-by-step flow
Press Sort
Next to the Unsorted count, in Check or in Feedback inbox. All open the same review beside the roadmap.
Read it before deciding
The original wording, source and capture date stay visible. Expand Existing work to check or Similar feedback was declined when available; shared words are a hint, not proof of a match.
Group the need
Choose an existing opportunity and press Link feedback, or Create opportunity using the request's words. The request leaves the unsorted count and stays retained. Creating an opportunity does not add work to the roadmap.
Reuse existing work
In the opportunity's Work step, link the item you already have. Several requests can support one problem and the same work without becoming duplicate items.
Choose new work deliberately
Assess the problem; MICE is optional. Create roadmap item asks for its title and workstream. If needed, Select & create item records your selection reason too. New work starts without a horizon or dates; plan those on the item.
Write the no down
Decline asks for a reason and keeps it with the request. Find it in Feedback inbox; Reopen feedback restores the same record when circumstances change.
Leave what you genuinely cannot decide
It stays in the pile and keeps ageing. A signal you leave twice is a signal you have decided about without saying so.
Finish at zero
The counter should run out. If it does not, the pass did not finish.
Use the arrow at the top of a review to return to the inbox. Sort … waiting opens the oldest remaining request. Unsaved decision reasons are protected when you leave the review.
What good looks like
- The Unsorted button has gone from the filter row, because nothing is waiting.
- Each reviewed request belongs to an opportunity or has a recorded decline reason.
- Each new item is linked to its opportunity and is planned separately when you are ready to commit to delivery.
- The roadmap looks the same as it did before you started, except for the items you deliberately added.
Common traps
- Sorting into "later". Moving a signal to a roadmap item with a Later horizon, to avoid saying no, is how the pile moves onto the roadmap instead of off it. A horizon expresses planning intent; it is not a calendar date or a decision about whether the need is worth pursuing.
- Confusing grouping with commitment. Linked feedback means the problem is understood well enough to group. Selected means a product decision; only planning the linked work sets delivery expectations.
- Sorting continuously. Doing one whenever it arrives means you decide each in isolation, with no sense of what else came in. The pile is useful precisely because it lets you see the week together.
- Never finishing. A pass that stops halfway leaves the oldest items oldest. If you cannot finish, start from the oldest next time too.