3 Ways to Combat the Urgent Over the Important
Posted on November 20, 2020 by Oscar Montenegro, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.
Do you struggle to prioritize your urgent tasks over the important ones? Here are three tips that will shift your paradigm.
A common challenge leaders I work with have is distinguishing between what is important versus what is urgent.
The key is to think of both in relation to time. The Important always takes longer, the Urgent is more fun to get done because we get an immediate reward. We are wired for it. Our brains love to complete things.
Take a moment to think about your important items – the strategic plan or the performance system – these are vital processes and structures but will take more time to develop than the urgent, 2 minute tasks. So how do you combat the natural inclination to choose the urgent tasks over the important ones?
First, you must have clear objectives that help move the needle of your strategy. This is vital for focus and direction. When our objectives aren’t clear, we tend to fall prey to whatever is in front of us regardless of whether it’s important or urgent. When you know your objectives, you are able to re-focus yourself much quicker even when you get off course. The second way to combat the urgent over the important is to block the time in your calendar for the important things. If you think you will just get the important automatically done you’ll quickly find that your time will fill up with the non-essential without even trying. Once you block the time It’s going to take discipline and commitment to follow through but it’s the only way the important wins over the urgent. Finally, when the urgent is really something that is your responsibility, can you defer it? I don’t mean to keep putting something off. What I do mean is that you should defer the task so that you can plan for it. Otherwise you are interrupting the time you’ve set aside for the important and completing a task in haste won’t yield the results you are looking for anyway.
In summary, in order to make sure that the important wins over the urgent, make sure you have crystal clear objectives, block the time in your calendar, and defer urgent tasks so that you can plan for them instead.
