When people are faced with tons of workload, confused, they usually asked themselves what they need to do first; most people struggle to identify and act on what is urgent rather than what is important. Identifying what is urgent against what is important is essential in creating our to-do’s, managing our timeline and becoming a high performer individual. Some of the thoughts we encounter while deciding on our priorities include:
1. Which is which?
2. It seemed important at that time (Seth Godin)
3. I’ll prioritize easy tasks first.
4. I’m so confused, what if I do this first before the other one.
5. etc…
Urgent is defined on the web as “compelling immediate action; too pressing to permit delay;” while important is “great significance or value”. When we priorities tasks we need to identify urgent ones first by asking the following questions:
1. Which among the tasks has a deadline?
2. Which among deadlines is going first?
3. If there is no deadline, which one has the biggest impact when prolonged?
4. Which one has the biggest impact when the task is not meant?
Not all tasks are urgent and sometimes we confuse what is important to what is urgent. Accomplish the urgent ones first while planning for the important ones; but bear in mind that important ones needs to be addressed right after the urgent ones otherwise they become urgent too.
[tags]Time Management[/tags]
