Are you always firefighting urgent tasks? Here is how to get in control now.

President Eisenhower said,

“I have two kinds of problems: urgent and important. The urgent are not important and important are never urgent.”

If you are always firefighting urgent tasks, it can be difficult to stick to your priority list. You need to listen to what President Eisenhower said on the subject.

“It is often observed that the tasks that are urgent for you are important for someone else.”

If you need time to digest this, take your time, but the day you understand this, you will be the master of your own time.

So, when you are completing urgent tasks you are actually helping someone else accomplish their goals. At the cost of accomplishing your own goals.

Now it’s up to you what you want to do.

But let’s now come back to setting priorities in another way.

Prioritising according to Eisenhower Principle

According to the Eisenhower Principle, we set priority for each task on a scale of 1 to 3.

• Tasks that are both urgent and important are Priority 1.
• Tasks that are important but not urgent are Priority 2.
• And tasks that are urgent but not important are Priority 3.

Sometimes people think all urgent tasks must be finished first and they exchange definitions of Priority 2 and 3.

But ideally you should not bother with tasks that are not important. However, if that’s not possible, at least keep the definitions of Priority 2 and 3 as I explained just now. What is important but not urgent are priority 2.

They must be finished before priority 3 tasks, i.e. Urgent but not important.

You don’t need to worry about tasks that are neither urgent nor important. Just park them somewhere and look at them when you have absolutely nothing to do. Better still, dump them them.

What you need to do is focus on the important tasks.

Action Step

Now that you understand the difference between urgent and important, check if you want to set priorities of your tasks again.

The Wrap up

Comment here or write to me if your personal and professional lives have become blurred and you are struggling to manage your time.

I promise to help.

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