What’s the most important big task on your schedule today?
And the most urgent?
Are they the same thing?
If so, then you’ll have no problem deciding what to do first. But if not, then you’re faced with a dilemma:
Should you do the more-important-but-less-urgent task first, at the risk of missing your deadline?
Or should you do the urgent thing first, at the risk of sidelining your most important work?
In the moment, most of us will tend to do the urgent task first, no matter that it’s less important than the other one. And in the moment, there’s probably no great harm done – after all, if it’s important enough to get on your schedule, then presumably Bad Things Will Happen if you don’t do it on time.
But if we step back and look at the big picture of weeks, months and even years… supposing you kept allowing the less-important-but-more-urgent tasks to take priority over more-important-but-less-urgent? Is there not a danger that, over time, you’ll do plenty of good work, but not as much great work as you could have done? And if that’s the case, what impact will it have on your career, or your business?
If you’ve read Steven Covey’s classic book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
, then you’ll recognise his distinction between urgent and important tasks, as illustrated in the table below.
Covey argues that most of us spend too long in the left-hand column, either firefighting or rushing to meet deadlines in the top left quadrant, or wasting our time on unimportant busywork in the bottom left quadrant.
If we really want to achieve something remarkable, Covey says, we should spend all of our time in the top two quadrants, and none of it in the bottom two quadrants (after all, if it’s not important, why do it?). And we should spend as much time as possible in the top right quadrant, on the important-but-not-urgent tasks that create long-term value for others and long-term success for ourselves.
We also need to deal with the important-and-urgent tasks. But following Covey’s logic, if we do as much of the important stuff as possible before it becomes urgent, then gradually we should find that there is less to do in the top left quadrant. Of course, some of this is dependent on others, who may come to us with requests very late in the day, but we can at least eliminate the false urgency we create for ourselves by habitually leaving things to the last minute.
It’s hard to find a flaw in Covey’s argument. And most of the successful people I meet seem to be doing as he prescribes, by focusing relentlessly on their true priorities rather than the ephemeral demands of the day. I made a similar argument myself recently, on The 99 Percent, where I encouraged my readers to do ‘creative work first, reactive work second’.
Yet even when faced with these arguments and the evidence to back them up, many of us still find it hard to get off the hamster wheel of seemingly endless ‘urgent’ tasks in the left-hand column.
So what’s the difference between these two groups of people?
Unlike the people on the hamster wheel, the consistently high achievers treat the most important tasks as the most urgent. For them, there’s nothing more urgent than completing the task that will create the most value and have the biggest impact.
How to Inject Urgency into Your Plans
Having coached plenty of high achievers over the years, I’ve noticed two things about their mindset that give them a sense of urgency about the important challenges that the rest of us tend to put off until we’re ‘less busy’.
1. Fast forward
Living in the now is undoubtedly the most rewarding state to be in most of the time, especially when it comes to things like family, friends, food, meditation and holidays. It even applies to work, at the times when you need to be 100% focused on the task in hand to do an outstanding job.
But if you want to create or achieve remarkable things, then you also need to keep an eye on the future, and assess the likely impact of today’s actions on tomorrow’s outcomes. This is what the outstanding creators typically do – when they look at this week’s schedule, they look into the future, and decide their priorities according to medium-to-long-term results, not whether it will make today easier or harder.
Use imaginary time travel for real results:
- At the start of every week, look at the balance of urgent vs important tasks on your schedule.
- Among the urgent tasks, isolate the really important ones – i.e. the ones that will have serious consequences if you let people down. In your diary, schedule enough time to get these done.
- Now it’s time to prioritise the remaining tasks. In your imagination, ‘Fast forward’ one week – what is the likely outcome if you allow the urgent-but-not-so-important to take priority over the important-but-not-urgent? Note how satisfied you will be with your achievements.
- Now fast forward to the likely outcome if you do things the other way round – i.e. prioritising the important-but-not-urgent tasks. What difference does this make – particularly to your sense of achievement?
- Repeat the thought experiment using periods of one month, six months, one year and five years. Notice what difference it makes when you widen the timeframe.
2. Apply your own criteria
If you’re focused on today (rather than today + tomorrow) then it’s easy to get caught up in other people’s agenda – and find yourself making decisions based on their criteria. But once you start to look ahead, and see the likely consequences of your actions and the unfolding of related events, then you start to notice important factors coming into play. Things to avoid and things to aspire to. Opportunities and pitfalls.
In other words, you start to develop your own criteria for decision-making. Which makes it easier to assess your real priorities – and if it comes to it, easier to argue your point when there’s a clash with other people’s priorities.
Establish your own criteria:
- When you fast forward in your imagination, look out for likely desirable and undesirable consequences. Pay particular attention to consequences that affect your long-term plans.
- Use these ‘future consequences’ as criteria for the decisions you make today. Write them down, if it helps you keep them firmly in mind.
Now, some people might say that using your own criteria in this way is ‘selfish’. I disagree.
The reason I disagree is that criteria are ‘content-neutral’ – they could just as easily be about others’ needs or desires as your own. E.g. your plans could be about doing charitable work, or finding innovative new ways to help your customers more and charge them less.
The only ‘selfishness’ involved is in taking responsibility for making decisions according to what you believe is important, rather than taking your cue from others’ demands … which only takes you back to that hamster wheel.
Over to You
Do you agree that prioritising important-but-not-urgent tasks is the key to long-term success?
How do you inject a sense of urgency into long-term plans?
How do you deal with urgent demands while trying to make progress on your own plans?
Mark McGuinness is a poet, a coach for creative professionals, and the host of The 21st Century Creative Podcast.
hi mark,
i’ve read a lot of your posts and articles, but never commented. just wanted to thank you for sharing your perspective, and for supporting the creative pursuit. i like what you said about “creative work first, reactive work second”… i’ll have to follow the 99 percent link now to learn more. 🙂
cheers,
ana
Hi Ana, thanks for leaving a comment this time! 🙂
If you like Lateral Action you should like The 99 Percent – lots of great tips for creatives (and not just the ones by me 😉 ).
This couldn’t have been more appropriate for me today since I’m taking time out to look at priorities.
I’m a huge proponent of setting your own criteria for decisions, and time management is no different. I like your idea of looking at your priorities in terms of the impact your choice will have in a week, month, 6 months, a year, and 5 years.
Another helpful idea I learned from Covey is the one about the rocks in the jar. If you put in the big rocks (most important things) first, somehow all the smaller stuff manages to fit in around them. What truly matters gets done. But if you fill your life with small stuff, the big things may never fit.
One of the ways I’m improving in keeping the urgent-but-not-important stuff off my to do list is by learning how to say no. I’ve gotten so that I can smell a time suck of dubious value a mile away, and I’ll politely decline to take that stuff on whenever I can.
Great Post Mark!
I personally feel that SURVIVAL comes as a result of focusing more on the urgent things of life rather than on the important ones. To truly do great work as Mark rightly pointed out, our focus must be to identify and commit to doing only that which is essential and forgetting all other things.
Understanding that the urgent things will only yield short term results while the important things bring about long term results will go a long way in helping us make the transition. This distinction between what’s urgent and what’s important is the singular difference between productivity and activity.
Thanks for putting this out there – it’s stellar advice for both individuals AND society en masse.
Wow, Mark. This post has so much relevance for me. I’m constantly trying to find ways to get the important work done without being sidelined by the urgent things. With a day job, a household to run, and two kids, this can become quite difficult.
I think injecting urgency into the important work is absolutely key – then it’s in the back of my mind all the time, reminding me to get on it! The hard part is sustaining that sense of urgency over the long term to get longer projects done. I’d be interested to know how others do this.
Excellent post and very good summary of Covey’s concept of important vs. urgent.
We’ve built up our entire business around a few of Steven Covey’s timeless concepts.
The key is figure out how to climb out from under the mountain of urgent activities that consume all of us every day. How do you leverage yourself and begin shedding urgent but not important activities to find more time to spend on the important but not urgent items.
This is the essence of high leverage and I agree that all top talent and the most successful people have learned to spend more and more time in the important but not urgent quadrant.
Great article, Mark!
I was just thinking about Alex’s comment above.
We have to apply the “Important” v “Urgent” to our entire life – not just work:
Do I finish my work to hit my deadline or clean the house because my family is visiting?
Both need doing, but if we’ve gradually kept on top of both, we’ll avoid catastrophic messes when deadlines and families arrive at the same time. . . .
Easier said than done, of course. . . . Always a juggling act – just gotta’ back sure we’re juggling balls and not chainsaws. . . .
Hi Mark!
I always used to push my own projects to the back and focused on client work, which meant I got all my work done, but rarely created anything which grew my business.
I’ve now developed a bias for my own projects. The client work gets done just in the same way as before, but my focus is on my things first. Surprisingly, I’m a lot more motivated and focused when it comes to client work because (in addition to picking nicer people to work with) I’m excited about what I’ve got done on my work.
This took me an incredibly long time to get my head round because I always felt you should do the “work” first and “fun” later.
And that’s no fun at all. 🙂
I have always struggled with what Covey calls the “tyranny of the urgent” and allow that to dominate my time. This is a great post because it gives me some practical tools and things to consider. The “tyranny of the urgent” seems to always invade my creative work time but your post really helps with that. Thanks!
I think essential to prioritizing is breaking long-term goals into smaller goals accomplishable in a day or so. Then use to-do lists to make future-you accoutable to present-you. Making the long-term urgent this way doesn’t feel like it’s urgent, but you steadily build steam and make progress towards those life goals.
It’s how I actually got my Groovy Portraits content created, organized and turned into something I’m really proud of sharing.
Peace,
@vinylart
Daniel, I have just recently adopted this idea of the present self and the future self and how what my present self does today my future self will thank me for.
I love it when I go to do something and I have somehow made it easier for myself through some past action. I also feel really irritated with my past self if I didn’t do the groundwork that would have helped me now.
Thinking about it this way does give urgency to the truly important, long-term stuff because I feel like I’m doing it for someone else–my future self–which fits with my tendency to let other people take over my agenda, LOL.
Thanks everyone, glad to hear it was helpful.
@ Sue “I’ve gotten so that I can smell a time suck of dubious value a mile away, and I’ll politely decline to take that stuff on whenever I can.” – I’m getting better at it, but alas, a few of them keep slipping through…
@ Alex “The hard part is sustaining that sense of urgency over the long term to get longer projects done. I’d be interested to know how others do this.” – I find injecting urgency is good for starting, and public commitment is good for finishing. Once you’ve put yourself on the line by showing others your progress and committing to a deadline, it’s amazing how motivating the prospect of public embarrassment can be. 😉
@ Amy – “Surprisingly, I’m a lot more motivated and focused when it comes to client work because (in addition to picking nicer people to work with) I’m excited about what I’ve got done on my work.” I can relate to that. I can deal with all kinds of hassle and interruptions as long as I’ve done ‘my’ work first. Much harder to bear if not…
@ Daniel – Interesting to know the back-story of your portraits. Maybe we should get the full scoop on Lateral Action one day… 😉
@ Sue(‘s alter ego) – Yes, you can have lots of creative fun with multiple selves. 🙂
I’ve always thought of the important but not urgent quadrant to be the type of work that allows you to be free from the tyranny of purely urgent fire-fighting and reactive activites. Top performers try to create process, automation, delegation, outsourcing that frees them up from the urgent quadrant to spend more time in the important quadrant.
Hi Mark,
this article regarding ‘urgency vs importance’ has been such an eye opener for me. Thank you very much!
It’s one of those moments when simple ”thank you” seems so inadequate…….yes, but, this does not stop me conveying my deep-felt appreciation to your ever insightful advice!!!
the article clarified my long-held view that I must stop wasting my time every single day for sometime, vacantly watching and reading ”daily news’, feeling alarmed and often helpless about world disasters, miseries and tragedies.
Of course, being in touch with what’s going on in the world currently seems somewhat ‘urgent’ but,
as you suggested, when looking at it in my own existential perspective,
following the news media is, for me, not important nor urgent, after all.
Brought up in a family whose members all watched the evening TV news summary studiously, sheepishly, I’ve always thought I have to do so as well.
Now, thanks to you, Mark, I think I’ll skip it(of course not altogether) and make best use of my available time in life.
Thank you, and thank you again.
what about if you do not have urgent thinks because you are retired, you own your time and there is only time for important things or to loose it?
@Enrique,
If you are ” retired ”, meaning that you are chronologically mature, and the number of years remaining until 100 years old is less than younger people, then,
your time is a scarce commodity therefore, the prioritisation of the things should become all the more imperative and urgent, surely.
I’m not young either.
But I don’t believe I can really ”retire” from my genuine life-work (quite apart from the day-jobs), and I have become conscious of the time-ticking, the real ”BIOLOGICAL” time, our longevity.
I always enjoy your thoughts, as shared with us here. You have a beautiful way of making potentially confusing issues, quite logical as simple. Which they all always were, but less clearl thought processes tend to see in a “jumbled way”.
Thank you.
Thanks Mark,
I read the 7 Habits before my first professional job and I still use the quadrant system to plan my work to this day. I notice so many senior, better paid executives so disorganised and unfocused, I try to share the plan with them. Thanks for the reminder. Hope more people can learn to work smarter.
Dani