In his seminal book on effectiveness, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“, Dr Steven Covey makes a clear distinction between what is urgent and what is important. Covey outlines a 4-box matrix (that old consultants’ favourite!) with Urgent on one axis, and Importance on the other (see the image).
Most people who are feeling like busy fools are making one of two mistakes in respect of Covey's matrix: they are putting all their effort into completing Urgent tasks, or they are failing to identify the Important ones. Urgent tasks are those that have a deadline approaching, while Important ones are those that get you where you want to go in the longer term.
Covey says we should be spending most of our time in quadrant two - "Urgent AND Important". And he makes a very important point: if we are dealing with quadrant two items while they are not yet urgent, we should never have anything in quadrant one at all. And where we can get the time to work on quadrant two stuff, to stop it leaking up into quadrant one, is from quadrants three, and particularly quadrant four.
The trick, of course, is to understand whether the "importance" of a task, or a project, or a business, relates to *your* long-term objectives, or those of somebody else. So before you put something to the top of your priority list, make sure you are doing it for you.
If this article has got you thinking, and you would like to follow up on the ideas and see how you can take control of your priorities and your time, let's have a chat!
Or you might like my free report:
From Busy Fool to Busy Cool - 5 essential keys to effective prioritization
