First, let me put this out there – Important tasks steer us toward achieving our goals, professional and personal, while urgent tasks require our immediate attention, often to achieve other people’s goals; very likely your boss’s.
“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” This quote by former US President, Dwight D. Eisenhower rings very true in my mind and takes me back to my early days as a novice catering manager.
I was struggling to fit all my tasks within a day. A 10-hour working day wasn’t enough. The worse was that I was working hard but I had the feeling I had nothing to show for it. It seemed that the harder I worked, the less I achieved. I was always playing catch up, multi-tasking – a huge mistake I eventually found out – starting work early to get ahead with no one around to disturb me, and leaving work late in order to squeeze one or two more tasks in. And to compound matters further, I felt guilty because I wasn’t reaching my professional goals, let alone my personal ones.
This can result in excessive stress, over time leading to burnout.
That was until I was made to realise that instead of working harder, I should work smarter. When you are caught up in this rat race, it is surprisingly easy to confuse what is urgent with what is important. The effect on your life, professional as well as personal, can be very damaging.
Back in those days, I was juggling too many tasks, commercial, financial, operational, walking the floor, meeting customers, suppliers and visitors, planning events, delivering training sessions and many other tasks. My day was spent running in my hamster wheel; I was going back home exhausted and disengaged. Slouched on my seat in a corner of the carriage, I would think about my day and I was overwhelmed by the feeling I had achieved nothing. That was because I had spent the day dealing with hassle; reading emails and responding to some, taking phone calls, was distracted many times, people wanting one thing or another, asking questions, sat through not one but two meetings which could have been half as long, and the list continues.
I dealt all day with the urgent and in spite of the long hours, the important was often overlooked due to lack of time; that team training session would need to be postponed yet again, reviewing that system which didn’t work as well as it should would have to wait another day, another week or worse…
There are many tools available to help managing your time, as well as time management training courses, but understanding the difference between the important and the urgent is a good start, and will help you prioritise your daily tasks and focus on important activities.
I first came across the concept of the Eisenhower Principle in Stephen Covey’s excellent book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”
I am not going to explain the principle in details here, as it is widely available, but the concept is that in order to be more effective as well as more efficient, you have to prioritise your tasks. Spending your time on important things, not on urgent ones. To do this, you must first put them into one of 4 categories:
1 The Important and Urgent – Do It Now
2 The Important but Not Urgent – Do It Later
3 The Not Important but Urgent – Delegate
4 The Not Important and Not Urgent – Don’t Do It / Avoid
You first list your tasks, then following the principle, you categorise them and deal with them accordingly, so that you can prioritise what really matters and achieve much more in your day.
More importantly you will feel better about your day and yourself, as you will know you have achieved more. Your well-being will also improve and the stress will likely decrease.
If you want to develop your skills in Time Management or other areas of Leadership, check out our available courses and get in touch today to discuss any questions you might have.
I will leave you with one last quote, by another US politician, Paul Tsonga;
“No one on their deathbed ever said: I wish I had spent more time at the office.”
Take care.
