How do you know which deals are actually worth your time?

I’ve been wondering how people prioritize their pipeline beyond just gut feel.

A lot of deals look active:

• Prospect is responsive (sometimes)
• Calls happened
• Stage is moving forward

But in reality:

• Some are just being polite
• Some are dragging with no real intent
• Some were never serious to begin with

And you only realize this after spending way too much time on them.

So I’m curious: how do you decide which deals to focus on vs which ones to deprioritize early?