The Importance of Being Urgent
Loading...
In this video, Dr. Robin Largue explains how to minimize distractions and focus on what critical tasks will progress you towards your mission.
Reflection Activity
- Are your urgent tasks the right tasks? Are they contributing to the larger goals of the organization?
- How well do you use your time to focus on the urgent things that are also important?
View Video Transcript
00:02
hi I’m Robin largue and I’m a coach with
00:06
Studer education and what I get to do is
00:09
talk with leaders across the country
00:11
each and every day one of the things
00:14
that we’ve really been talking about
00:15
lately is time do you ever leave work
00:19
and think gosh I have been here more
00:23
than eight hours I’ve worked really hard
00:25
I’m really tired but I didn’t accomplish
00:28
the things that I wanted to accomplish
00:30
and it seems as though some of us have
00:33
those days more often than others and so
00:36
it’s really made me think about some of
00:39
the things that Stephen Covey has
00:41
written about and talked about and one
00:44
is this quadrant which I think is really
00:46
critical and so you have urgent and not
00:50
urgent items in your day you also have
00:53
important and not important items in
00:56
your day now what happens to most of us
01:00
is that these items in urgent they get
01:04
taken care of but are they the right
01:07
items we might just leave off the
01:12
important but not urgent and those may
01:16
be the critical things we need to do in
01:19
order to help our organization perform
01:22
at a higher level and really meet the
01:25
mission of our organization so it’s
01:28
really thinking about what are those
01:30
things that are urgent immediate need
01:33
our attention but then are there some of
01:37
those things in the important area that
01:39
we need to move to urgent for example we
01:43
might have a report due and so it’s over
01:46
here in the important quadrant because
01:49
the due date is like 30 days out but as
01:52
we get closer to that 30 days it’s going
01:55
to shift to urgent but what are those
01:58
things that are in important that we
02:01
don’t ever shift because there’s not a
02:03
due date that’s those things like
02:06
thinking strategically what are our
02:09
competitors doing right now what’s
02:13
trending in our professional research in
02:16
literature what are our partners doing
02:20
that are best practices that we should
02:22
be taking a look at so it’s really
02:25
beginning to think about how we use our
02:28
time to really focus on the urgent
02:32
things that are truly important for us
02:35
to live our mission and if we can begin
02:38
to do that then we are going to
02:41
eliminate some of these things that are
02:43
urgent but not important
02:46
think about that ringing a phone think
02:49
about that immediate email think about
02:52
the distractions that are occurring in
02:55
your daily life your daily work life and
02:58
how can you eliminate or minimize those
03:02
distractions and that will help you get
03:05
to those truly important things that
03:09
need to be urgent in the work that we do
03:12
each day
