January 19th, 2009 | by Jack Reichert
It can be difficult to decide what to do when. One of the most challenging aspects of getting things done is usually taking the first step. The problem is, which step is one supposed to take first?
The good news is that there have been many different tools developed to help people prioritize. This, though, can lead to a similar problem and you’ll find yourself asking “Which system should I use?” I will cover many different systems in the future, but here I will present a great technique for deciding, of all the things that need to be done, what is most important of them all.
Dr. Stephen Covey wrote a book called “7 habits of Highly Effective People.” It was described as “Destined to be the personal leadership handbook of the decade,” I would say it probably will be, but for the century. I like to reread this book regularly, and each time I discover and am able to implement more tools that it describes.
Urgent and Important
In his book Dr. Covey distinguishes between two different types of priorities. Priorities that are important, and priorities that are urgent. A task can be categorized as urgent or important, but can also be BOTH urgent AND important or neither.
Urgent tasks are tasks that are time related. These tasks require immediate attention and have to be done NOW! A ringing phone would usually fall into that category. Most people cannot stand to not answer a ringing phone.
Tasks that are important are defined by the outcome. The tasks whose outcome provide the greatest return are most important. An important task is one that will further you toward your goals. One example of something that is important would be to learn a new skill set so that you can do your job more effectively.
Ideally, we should strive to focus only on what is important. Unfortunately, most people focus on what is urgent, even if it isn’t important. If you run around putting out fires, you will never succeed in building anything new.
Be Proactive!
Dr. Covey makes another distinction that things that are urgent, we react to; while things that are important we usually have to act on, be proactive, to accomplish. This is an important insight into why we tend to focus on the urgent tasks, even if they are not important.
It can be scary to take initiative to do something. There is so much more to lose. If you take a responsibility upon yourself to do, and you fail, you only have yourself to blame. The flip side is that if you never take initiative, you will never succeed either.
If you truly want to be an effective person, prioritize your To-Do list. Make sure that you start focusing on important tasks. You don’t want to look back next year and ask yourself why you wasted so much time. Instead, I bet that you want to look back in a year and be proud of all that you have accomplished, how far you have come!
Image Credit: txkimmers
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