"Important" vs. "Urgent"
"What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If you're like me, I quite often get caught up in the "Hairball of Life" by allowing the "Urgent" things to keep me from accomplishing the "Important" things in life. I personally feel that none of the time management courses will help us be more productive - both personally and professionally - until we understand how to differentiate the "Urgent" from the "Important".
Unless we understand the difference and learn to focus our energy on the "Important", we will continue to be busy and not any more effective and the "Hairball of Life" will continue its control over our lives. I want to share the following insights from one of our world-class coaches on how to better manage our energy and accomplish the "Important" things in life.
"Important" vs. "Urgent"
(A lesson in priorities I learned on the road from 2d Lieutenant to 2 Star General)
- Vincent E. Boles
During my Army active duty service of over 33 years I repeatedly found myself wrestling within the grip of the "time monster". A monster that ensured I was always presented with more tasks to do than I had time and/or energy to accomplish them. The wrestling match came daily and often and I was usually happy with a "tie".
During these wrestling matches I would always mutter that "someday" I was going to get better at controlling these tasks. I was going to: "Be proactive"; "Get Ahead of the Power Curve"; "Control my Calendar vs. "It Controlling me"…etc….or any one of the other time management "mantras" that populate today's business lexicon.
As I rose through the ranks (Lieutenant; Captain; Major; Lieutenant Colonel…etc…) I discovered that the problems in my in box (both in complexity and number) rose as my rank did. Sadly, however, I didn't find any better time management acumen accompanying these promotions. Finally I resigned myself to a lot where I would be a manager no better in my future than I had been in my past.
That was my status quo until one day I heard a senior officer discuss how he got on top and as importantly stayed on top of things he had to stay on top of. I expected to hear about a new "system" (IE: Daytimers; Covey Calendars; A-B-C Prioritization Matrices… etc… etc…). But, instead of sharing a newly discovered management system for my task list, he did better, giving me a new perspective to look at the tasks on that list.
He would peruse his to do list and separate the tasks into 2 "buckets"; "Important" and "Urgent". When I asked what he did if a task didn't meet either of those 2 criteria he told me he gave it back stating "If it's not Important or Urgent then it's probably routine and in great organizations (and he commanded one) I've found it's critical that routine things get done routinely". Put another way, somebody far below him in the organization should be concerned with this task
I then asked him how he set the cut line between "Urgent" and "Important". His response was simple to state, compelling to hear and, if you had confidence in yourself and your team, fully capable of being executed without any tortuous processes or new technology insertions. It goes like this:
"URGENT": Urgent items were tasks that needed to be done and he needed to ensure that someone was assigned to it, working on it and tracking it to completion and alerting him to problems/challenges that would endanger accomplishment in enough time that they could be addressed. These were "take it and keep me informed" tasks where the leader is accountable for accomplishment and the subordinate is responsible to accomplish it.
"IMPORTANT": These were tasks that only he as the Commander could accomplish. For example, only he could counsel subordinate commanders (staff couldn't do that), only he could sign and conduct legal proceedings, only he should represent the unit at critical events (mission rehearsals, deployment and redeployment ceremonies…etc…).
He advised that once he viewed his tasks through this lens of; "Important" vs. "Urgent" he obtained greater clarity on how he used his time. He empowered subordinates by handing them "Urgent" tasks that needed to get done, entrusting them with the well-being and reputation of the unit and by doing so, freed up his time to focus his efforts on things only he could do.
As an added benefit, I found that I was able to use this to also make better use of my time at home. While I was working on something perceived as "Urgent" at work was I missing something important at home? You see only I could be the husband to my wife, the son to my Mom, the brother to my siblings and if I spent my time on "Urgent" I'd missed out on accomplishing those "Important" responsibilities.
In closing, this isn't meant to be a panacea, there will still be a number of "Important" things to do, and however, I found this approach to be empowering and less stressful for me and a growth experience for my subordinates - and my wife likes it too !
Vincent E. Boles
Major General, U.S. Army (Retired)
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If you're like me, I quite often get caught up in the "Hairball of Life" by allowing the "Urgent" things to keep me from accomplishing the "Important" things in life. I personally feel that none of the time management courses will help us be more productive - both personally and professionally - until we understand how to differentiate the "Urgent" from the "Important".
Unless we understand the difference and learn to focus our energy on the "Important", we will continue to be busy and not any more effective and the "Hairball of Life" will continue its control over our lives. I want to share the following insights from one of our world-class coaches on how to better manage our energy and accomplish the "Important" things in life.
"Important" vs. "Urgent"
(A lesson in priorities I learned on the road from 2d Lieutenant to 2 Star General)
- Vincent E. Boles
During my Army active duty service of over 33 years I repeatedly found myself wrestling within the grip of the "time monster". A monster that ensured I was always presented with more tasks to do than I had time and/or energy to accomplish them. The wrestling match came daily and often and I was usually happy with a "tie".
During these wrestling matches I would always mutter that "someday" I was going to get better at controlling these tasks. I was going to: "Be proactive"; "Get Ahead of the Power Curve"; "Control my Calendar vs. "It Controlling me"…etc….or any one of the other time management "mantras" that populate today's business lexicon.
As I rose through the ranks (Lieutenant; Captain; Major; Lieutenant Colonel…etc…) I discovered that the problems in my in box (both in complexity and number) rose as my rank did. Sadly, however, I didn't find any better time management acumen accompanying these promotions. Finally I resigned myself to a lot where I would be a manager no better in my future than I had been in my past.
That was my status quo until one day I heard a senior officer discuss how he got on top and as importantly stayed on top of things he had to stay on top of. I expected to hear about a new "system" (IE: Daytimers; Covey Calendars; A-B-C Prioritization Matrices… etc… etc…). But, instead of sharing a newly discovered management system for my task list, he did better, giving me a new perspective to look at the tasks on that list.
He would peruse his to do list and separate the tasks into 2 "buckets"; "Important" and "Urgent". When I asked what he did if a task didn't meet either of those 2 criteria he told me he gave it back stating "If it's not Important or Urgent then it's probably routine and in great organizations (and he commanded one) I've found it's critical that routine things get done routinely". Put another way, somebody far below him in the organization should be concerned with this task
I then asked him how he set the cut line between "Urgent" and "Important". His response was simple to state, compelling to hear and, if you had confidence in yourself and your team, fully capable of being executed without any tortuous processes or new technology insertions. It goes like this:
"URGENT": Urgent items were tasks that needed to be done and he needed to ensure that someone was assigned to it, working on it and tracking it to completion and alerting him to problems/challenges that would endanger accomplishment in enough time that they could be addressed. These were "take it and keep me informed" tasks where the leader is accountable for accomplishment and the subordinate is responsible to accomplish it.
"IMPORTANT": These were tasks that only he as the Commander could accomplish. For example, only he could counsel subordinate commanders (staff couldn't do that), only he could sign and conduct legal proceedings, only he should represent the unit at critical events (mission rehearsals, deployment and redeployment ceremonies…etc…).
He advised that once he viewed his tasks through this lens of; "Important" vs. "Urgent" he obtained greater clarity on how he used his time. He empowered subordinates by handing them "Urgent" tasks that needed to get done, entrusting them with the well-being and reputation of the unit and by doing so, freed up his time to focus his efforts on things only he could do.
As an added benefit, I found that I was able to use this to also make better use of my time at home. While I was working on something perceived as "Urgent" at work was I missing something important at home? You see only I could be the husband to my wife, the son to my Mom, the brother to my siblings and if I spent my time on "Urgent" I'd missed out on accomplishing those "Important" responsibilities.
In closing, this isn't meant to be a panacea, there will still be a number of "Important" things to do, and however, I found this approach to be empowering and less stressful for me and a growth experience for my subordinates - and my wife likes it too !
Vincent E. Boles
Major General, U.S. Army (Retired)
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