Urgency vs Importance
How fast do your days go?
Sometimes we just end up here, not realizing how we got here. Our days once felt comfortably busy; we were productive and enjoying the fast-paced deadlines and that ‘nudge’ that reminded us to keep our momentum up, reaching towards each task. Somehow, our task list expanded a bit more each day without our notice - until that moment we realize there’s much more to do than we have time for. You lean into your days trying to get ahead. At some point you’re just not feeling the progress or momentum you had, and you start avoiding your once-favorite to-do list. Perhaps you’re starting to feel a little worn out, losing sight of your goal and the reason for our hustle to begin with. To feel productive, you reach for the fastest, easiest tasks to get those out of the way - and is it okay that those bigger projects get delayed to next week, right… right?? It might be you’re so buried in your current day - that thinking about future plans just seems too much to even think about right now.
In a task-based and timeline-centric world, our to-do lists can be our driver to success, or the weight that crushes our progress. The same victory checkmark for each cross-off can also nudge us toward feeling weighted and defeated. We pile everything on our lists - pay the bills, pick up the groceries, send out thank you cards, don’t forget to pick Bobby up from school today right next to overhaul savings plan, build a new deck on the house, plan out the 10-Year Vision for our branch. As we continue to ignore the measurement of time on our lists, our lists continue to expand. We grow desensitized to the sheer number of tasks requiring our time, attention, energy. Without addressing the problem at its root, we end up in a reactionary state - letting our external life command our focus and attention. As humans, we have limits on our daily decision-making capability - and yet we build ourselves a list of decisions to make - which task, complete when, in addition to our true decisions that must be made each day. When it all piles up, we give in and surrender to the mighty to-do list. “I’ll never catch up, why does planning six months out even matter.” Our mighty to-do list has defeated us.
We have these very lists, project sheets, time blocks; we schedule ‘to-do’s in our calendar, set reminders, and are buried in an assortment of bleeps and dings as reminders for everything we should be doing - and yet, according to the American Psychological Association, 20% of us adults are chronic procrastinators. (Footnote 1). 43% of us admit to daily levels of high stress, per Gallup’s State of the Workplace: 2022 Report (2). The Development Academy reports from their research, 82% don’t have a time management system (3). Yet - 90% of employees agree that better time management would greatly reduce their stress and increase their productivity.
So how do we get out from underneath this?
Quiet time - away from all the bleeps and dings, emails and phone calls, and let’s truly take a moment to sit down - reflect - and not just size up the amount of work we are to do, but where to start, how we’re going to get it accomplished, and how this may benefit us down the road.
What is the quality and impact of the tasks you’re doing? What tasks are you completing, and which ones are not able to be completed? What is the direction of your focus? What is your return investment on your own time? It is here that we must pause and reflect over what we’re working on, how we’re working on it, and the ways that we’re truly investing into our daily work, and our time.
Highlighted in Steven Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, the time management matrix (also referred to as the Eisenhower Matrix), is a simple yet powerful tool to help us chart out our tasks, our focus, and potential results of that time investment. This tool can be used as a high-level productivity exercise, yet also capable of plotting out focused project plans. When used thoughtfully, the time management matrix captures that “3rd dimension” of our time. Our work is very rarely linear, and if you’re a leader or manager, the impact of your focus and involvement drastically impacts the output of yourself and your team. Ever feel the challenge of delegating tasks out to others? Here’s how we’re going to start overcoming this.
The time management matrix is a simple four-quadrant box - take a blank sheet of paper, and simply draw a large ‘+’ on it, the size of the entire page. Top quadrants are for all important tasks, bottom row is for not-important tasks. Left side, everything that’s urgent. Right side - everything that is not urgent.
With all 4 of these quadrants, we want to deeply reflect over everything on that mighty to-do list. Consider both your personal life and your business life. What obligations are on your desk right now, waiting for your action? Let’s add those to the best quadrant. What tasks were you working on this morning? Chart those out. Do you have tasks you hope to get to later today? Yep, those too. What jumps out at you that you were working on last week? What is coming up next week? How about any social obligations you have - Susie’s ballet recital this Friday, the team happy hour on Thursday? There’s a meeting invite on your calendar for your homeowner’s association, that is important, but do we need to go? Deeply reflect over how important this is. You may find some of these might be important - are they truly?
When you’ve charted out everything you can think of, sit back. Which quadrant is the fullest for you? Does this box capture what a good portion of what your days feel like? Are you feeling even mildly similar to the results in the above chart of your primary box? Stressed, meaningless work, not sure what’s going on, or ahead of the game may be the side-effects we’re experiencing.
Let’s review what you’ve come up with and create an action plan so you can reclaim your invested time and energy into your day.
Quadrant 4 - Not Urgent and Not Important - the time wasters and fillers of our day. And - honestly, sometimes a little bit may be ok. It's the long durations of TV, TikTok scrolling, social media consumption that makes our time disappear. The mindless things we do when we’re resistant to completing the tougher stuff is competing for our focus. It's important to reduce these as much as possible, and this area is the easiest task-grouping to start correcting and freeing up your valuable time and energy. Start eliminating these time wasters right now, be mindful and disciplined when they start creeping into our days. If you gravitate to items in this box after a long day, instead consider spending some quality unwind time with the kids - or have a good laugh on a Saturday night with some of your closest friends around the fire pit. Start identifying this time and refocusing your attention to quality time investments – that includes relaxing and recharging.
Quadrant 1 - Urgent & Important - the box that most of us live our life out of. Quadrant 1 is the box that consistent stress and burn-out is born out of - when we do everything we can, and we feel like we just can’t get out of this space. Quadrant 1 is the fire of our lives, our heightened work problems, escalations, unforeseen and unplanned situations. It could also be the broken washing machine that flooded your house last week, a sick child at school that needs to be picked up, having you leaving an important meeting early. Quadrant 1 is full of tasks that require our immediate attention to resolve, risk becoming even more serious if we don’t attend to them right away, and oftentimes we just don’t have any direct control over. While we can never truly prevent having any Q1 tasks at all, what are some things you’ve written down that, deep down, you know you could have handled or addressed earlier? Let’s put a star next to those.
Quadrant 3 - Urgent But Not Important – start delegating now. This quadrant is the box that is filled with tasks that appear to be important, or perhaps you’re entertaining for a more distant reason. This is the ‘busy work’, the mundane background hum of routine tasks that obscures valuable time and yields low rewards. Reports, cc’d email chains, unclear meeting objectives. This is where we deal with office equipment or computers not working the way they’re supposed to, that we work around it being broken instead of getting it fixed This is where we place routine house chores or reports we work on. We ultimately want to delegate, remove, cancel, or push back on as much out of this box as possible. Delegate these tasks to team members - give them the opportunity to learn and master these now. Get this type of work off your desk as quickly as possible, steer towards more productive time. The value in delegating out is the gain of higher-value and higher-investment tasks. Have a bunch of routine tasks that you simply can’t delegate out? Which of these are you able to automate or outsource - grocery pickup / delivery, auto bill pay, auto-refill purchases? Any clunky workflow processes that could be refined and made more efficient? Any willing house members that could help tackle some house chores? Lastly, if there are tasks that you simply must complete, save these low-energy, low return tasks to times that are outside of your personal peak energy times. Set a specific time block to minimize your time involvement on them as much as possible. Start taking action on these today - the faster you delegate or automate, the more time is available to you for valuable Quadrant 2.
Quadrant 2 - Not Urgent yet (Very) Important. This is the planning box, the looking ahead and staying one-step-ahead-box. This is quality time and investment into your family, your closest relationships, your spirituality, investment into your team and peers. What new reading or learning would be helpful for your own development? What would your life feel like with this box full? If this box was on your side, what great goals are you able to accomplish? Truly envision this quadrant growing as the days go by, with the time we’re freeing up by dispositioning tasks in the other 3 quadrants. We can all agree that Quadrant 2 really is the ‘sweet spot’ of where we want to spend as much of our time as possible. Do it now - schedule any health or home maintenance needs. Block time off for that morning workout you keep putting off. Schedule your tasks (start right now!) that appear in Q2 and commit to getting them done before they turn into Quadrant 1 tasks. Those items you starred in Q1, reflect on these. Is there any preventative work you can start doing to keep those from reoccurring? Get that postponed HVAC tune-up on the calendar. Block quality time off for your closest. This is the most valuable investment of your time that yields the greatest results.
With some intentional reflection over the focus of your time, we’re able to gain a clear understanding of where you’re at, with where you’d really like to go. Quadrant 1 - tackle right away; do or delegate quickly. Quadrant 2 - schedule when to do it, commit to it. Quadrant 3 - start delegating now and recruit help on these items as much as possible. Quadrant 4 - eliminate, redirect your timewasters back towards important recharge time with family, friends, self.
How many tasks were you able to remove off your to-do list right away? How much more awareness have you gained over the importance of your focus? As new tasks appear, ask yourself the ‘urgent vs important’ discretion to determine the best investment of your time and the importance of the task. Get out of the urgency box and get ahead.
Written by Jen Lasher
BIO: Jen Lasher is a creative problem solver who specializes in time management, workflow design, and resourcefulness. Prior to joining Fairway Ignite as a coach, Jen spent over 17 years in the mortgage industry, ranging from small mortgage brokers all the way to large portfolio lenders, covering roles from origination to funding. With a knack for technological resourcefulness and unique problem solving, Jen is uniquely experienced to guide others towards sharpening skills for their own success within the mortgage industry. When she's not applying critical thinking towards her next tough challenge, Jen can be found spending time outdoors on hiking trails or the open ocean, or enjoying one of her many passions for music.
