Is It Really Urgent?
“What is important is seldom urgent,” Dwight D. Eisenhower is known for saying, “and what is urgent is seldom important.”
It is natural to focus on whatever seems most pressing now and checking an item off the to-do list, without getting to work that is most important in the long term. If you wait to do what’s important until your schedule clears up a little, odds are that it won’t. You will always feel about as busy as you are now, and as your career progresses you may even accumulate more responsibilities. Managing how time is spent is a challenge all leaders face. Determining what is important from what is urgent will help prioritize where time could be spent most effectively.