When your workload seems to have no end, and keeping track of what should come next feels unmanageable, prioritising may be one of the most important skills you can master. Oftentimes, our list of tasks just keeps getting longer. We can easily feel overwhelmed and start frantically doing various things simultaneously, as ‘quickly’ as possible, in an effort to get some sort of sense of achievement and not to let down those who are relying on us. Instead, the feeling we often end up with is exhaustion and sometimes even defeat, leading to a vicious cycle of loss of motivation and reduced productivity.
Having a clear head and structure around your work can be as crucial to your productivity as being an expert at what you do. Put both together and you are sure to end up owning your task list and ploughing through it, or rather ploughing through the right tasks, while learning to let others go. After all, you can be highly effective at getting things done, but if you are not working on the right things, your workload will just keep growing.
The Urgent vs Important Principle came about as a result of former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s words; “Most things which are urgent are not important, and most things which are important are not urgent”. Often also called the Eisenhower Matrix, his words point out how weighed down we can feel by tasks that are important, although they may not be an immediate priority or may not be time-bound at all. The same goes for tasks that distract us due to their urgency, but that could be handled by someone else, as they are less important. Accepting that certain important actions will happen when the time is right and that other urgent ones may not be done exactly as you would perform them yourself, can be another important step in clearing your head for the sake of effectiveness with the important, but also very urgent tasks. Get these done and you can focus on the other, longer-term, important ones.
At the start of every day, or at the close of one, you may want to review all the tasks that have come your way and categorise them into the various quadrants of the matrix. Try to ensure that a decent amount of tasks end up in the bottom left (delegate) and bottom right quadrant (eliminate), freeing up room to do those things that really need to be done by you.
Urgent and Important Tasks
These are tasks which, if left pending, would have significant repercussions. They are time-critical and can result from nearing deadlines or could even come about from one minute to the next when you already feel like you have far too much to do, such as with client related matters. These are the tasks you need to be doing, but also the ones keeping you away from performing your best and acting on the ones that are really going to make a long-term difference and bring about a sense of satisfaction. The latter tend to nag at the backs of our minds, causing that feeling of not being on top of things, and if we only work on Urgent and Important tasks they can eventually creep into our urgent tasks, keeping us in a rushed state of working on what is urgent.
Urgent but Not Important Tasks
A lot of the interruptions we receive on a daily basis tend to be about these sort of tasks. These include meetings that were planned but that might not be as urgent or important as other tasks on our lists, or even many calls that we choose to receive. The fact that someone else is counting on us or trying to reach us, can make us feel obliged to dig a deeper hole of unfinished work. If a task is not important to you but is to someone else, and it needed to happen by a certain time, assess the situation. How important is the relationship to you? How important are their priorities to the bigger picture? Is this something that someone else can handle instead of you?
Not Urgent and Not Important
These tasks are time-waster. Accept it; you cannot do everything. Unfortunately the fact that these tasks remain part of our work-day is often a result of the pull we have towards doing them. This can be due to learned behaviours that may have become redundant, or the things we do when we are putting off doing the less comfortable tasks. Procrastination is hard to beat when you feel like you’re still working while you’re doing it. Take each task into considerations and ask yourself whether you really need to be doing this right now. Let’s face it, how many times have you read an email (or better; social media post) that did not seem relevant to you but curiosity got the better of you. You may also remember a few phone calls that you decided to make instead of buckling down and focusing on what was pressing. Both cases came with the excuse that it should get done at some point anyway…that point just wasn’t now, and whether it needed doing is questionable.
Not Urgent but Important Tasks
These are the tasks that you should schedule and plan very carefully as it is feeling in control of these tasks that will give you more breathing room in your workday later on. These tasks, although not urgent now, can become urgent in the future. Using tools like Gantt Charts, discussed in Edition 1 of Empowerment Through Knowledge, could help you not to let these future deadlines creep up on you. Set yourself the intention to get them done at a time that works for you, giving yourself time to perform these tasks in a way that gives you satisfaction and growth. Consider what other tasks you may have pending and try your best to stick to your target dates/times, keeping in mind that Important and Urgent tasks may take priority every now and again. However, when you think of quality time with family, keeping up a good relationship with a colleague, or getting enough rest, sticking to these as often as you can could be highly beneficial to the rest of your day.
Looking at the bigger picture, furthering your education in a field that could have a significant impact on your career may not be an urgent step, but one that is highly important to you and to your future. At the same time, it could become urgent when a vacancy comes about that you need skills or a qualification to apply for. Thinking ahead, means being prepared for the future and beating the rat race.