{"id":7144,"date":"2017-09-26T20:18:53","date_gmt":"2017-09-26T18:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alphaefficiency.com\/?p=7144"},"modified":"2017-09-26T20:18:53","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T18:18:53","slug":"pitfalls-prioritization-avoid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alphaefficiency.com\/pitfalls-prioritization-avoid","title":{"rendered":"The Pitfalls of Prioritization and How to Avoid Them"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article first appeared on Alpha Efficiency Magazine: Issue 3: Organizing,\u00a0subscribe and buy here<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

There’s an oft-referenced quote, attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who is said to have remarked:<\/p>\n

What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ve been trying desperately to find some more information about the origins of this quote but unfortunately, there appears to be scant information about when, where and in what context Eisenhower made this remark. \u00a0It may even be a productivity urban legend!<\/p>\n

Whether correctly attributed or not, Eisenhower’s purported premise, later popularized by Steven Covey in his books First Things First<\/em> and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People<\/em>\u00a0is that we do our best work when we are clear about the urgency and importance of what we’re choosing to tackle. \u00a0In his books, Covey proposes a matrix that can be used to illustrate the distribution of tasks in your system against these axes:<\/p>\n\"\"\n

Ignore the Experts – They’re Doing it Wrong<\/h2>\n

Despite the advice of some time management gurus and websites, the literal application of this matrix as a “task manager” (writing all your tasks down in each quadrant and attacking them in sequence) is rarely an adequate approach for getting the most out of the Urgent\/Important matrix.<\/p>\n

Used properly, a matrix is a powerful tool for introspection and ongoing analysis. By using it to improve your understanding of how effectively you prioritize your work, you can learn to embed this approach into your mental organizing toolkit and ultimately begin to prioritize at the point of collection.<\/p>\n

Defining Urgent vs Important<\/h2>\n

To understand how to apply this concept, it is first necessary to have a firm grasp of what is meant by Urgent<\/em>\u00a0and Important<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Urgent<\/h3>\n

I find some of the dictionary definitions of Urgent<\/em>\u00a0unsatisfactory for the purpose of this discussion. Take, for example, the Oxford Dictionaries definition:<\/p>\n

Requiring immediate action or attention.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is perhaps what Urgent should<\/em>\u00a0mean, and what many people think it means, but how many tasks or actions in your daily life require immediate<\/strong>\u00a0action or attention? \u00a0Strictly speaking, Merriam Webster has defined an emergency<\/em>\u00a0– something that requires you to prioritize it above everything else<\/em>. \u00a0By definition, something that requires immediate attention must be attended to first, and you, therefore, cannot have two of those items on your list at any given time.<\/p>\n

I prefer Oxford Dictionaries’ alternative definition:<\/p>\n

Something to be done or arranged in response to a pressing or critical situation.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now we’re getting somewhere. \u00a0By introducing the notion of the pressing or critical situation<\/em>, we’re recognizing that the notion of Urgent<\/em>\u00a0is quite often characterized by how badly somebody else wants us to do it, and the proximity of the effect of the task not being complete. \u00a0Urgency under this definition becomes much more subjective and it’s easier to understand why people struggle to assess it correctly.<\/p>\n

Important<\/h3>\n

Oxford Dictionaries and many others appear to be in broad agreement that important<\/em> can be defined as:<\/p>\n

Something of great significance or value.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though the challenge under that definition is to explore how we ascertain what value<\/em>\u00a0is, and how to measure it. \u00a0Are tasks important based purely on their monetary value? Personal advancement? The benefit to the community?<\/p>\n

Oxford Dictionaries go on to add:<\/p>\n

Likely to have a profound effect on success, survival or well-being.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This extra qualification starts to get to the crux of how important<\/em>\u00a0influences prioritization; namely the consequences<\/em>\u00a0of this task being performed (or not). \u00a0We understand by this that important<\/em>\u00a0tasks will have a significant impact on the advancement of our personal or shared goals. In fact, important<\/em>\u00a0derives from the medieval Latin importantem, meaning “to be significant in.”<\/p>\n

Thus we can consider those items in our daily lives that are important<\/em>\u00a0as those whose consequences<\/em>\u00a0will have a significant\u00a0<\/em>impact on our success (or rather, on the achievement of your goals). Urgent<\/em>\u00a0tasks are those where the pressures of outside forces will yield an imminent (but unquantified) consequence.<\/p>\n

The Characteristics of the Quadrant Lurkers<\/h2>\n

At this point, it becomes easy to see why we’re naturally pretty good at dealing with items that are both Urgent and Important. \u00a0It’s because it’s relatively easy to recognize things that are of imminent consequence that we believe will have a significant impact on our personal or shared goals. For example:<\/p>\n

If I do a great job on this report and get it in today, I’ve got a real shot at that promotion.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A clear example of an Urgent<\/em>\u00a0and Important<\/em>\u00a0task.<\/p>\n

The Urgent\/Important matrix does not teach us a great deal about our ability to prioritize tasks that are both urgent and\u00a0<\/em>important. For most people, this sense of self-preservation or advancement is quite strong and these tasks are prioritized intuitively. It may, however, help us to identify if we are guilty of cultivating too many urgent & important tasks; a symptom of taking too much on and not saying “no” appropriately.<\/p>\n

Where the matrix becomes more powerful is in understanding our natural tendencies to prioritize tasks in the other three quadrants, where the imperative is less clear:<\/p>\n

Quadrant 2 (Not Urgent, Important)<\/h4>\n

In an ideal world, this is the quadrant that should be occupying most of your time. \u00a0When you’re working on tasks in this quadrant you’re moving towards your goals, but the urgency of the tasks has not yet reached a point where you’re pressured or rushed. It’s common for people to have numerous tasks in this quadrant, but not to be working on many of them.<\/p>\n

Watch out for:<\/strong>\u00a0Be critical of whether the tasks in this quadrant are truly “important.” \u00a0Many of us will tend to overstate the importance of a task, which will cause the quadrant to become bloated.<\/p>\n

Quadrant 3 (Urgent\/Not Important)<\/h4>\n

This can be a tough one to get your head around. Reflect on our previous definition: these are tasks with a short-term consequence of small significance to your overall goals. \u00a0Book tickets for the concert<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>might be urgent if the tickets will sell out fast, but may not be important<\/em> (unless you’ve made a commitment to go to a friend or family member). Similarly, bid for the novelty toothbrush on eBay\u00a0<\/em>has a finite time constraint, but unless the toothbrush has significant value to you it’s unlikely that the consequences of failing to meet the task will be small. Individuals who focus too much on this quadrant tend can find themselves operating in a way that feels reactive, short-term and lacking in long-term focus.<\/p>\n

Watch out for:<\/strong>\u00a0Don’t let too many people push their priorities onto you. Things that are important to others but not to you can swallow large chunks of time. Be judicious about agreeing to those things that are of shared importance (if it’s important to you, it’s important to me.)<\/p>\n

Quadrant 4 (Not Urgent, Not Important)<\/h4>\n

You’d be forgiven for thinking that this quadrant should always be empty, but this quadrant often contains the leisure and relaxation activities vital to a happy, balanced and productive life. \u00a0You could tie yourself up in knots about whether this makes them more “important”, but I think it’s useful to understand that although the consequences of not doing these activities are often trivial, for true happiness and fulfillment everybody should be spending at least a little time in Quadrant 4.<\/p>\n

I should point out that there are no hard and fast rules about what good looks like in terms of how your tasks are distributed amongst these quadrants. \u00a0It can be tempting to think that each quadrant represents an opportunity to “fix” your tasks and priorities in order to achieve some kind of perfect formula for productive prioritization.<\/p>\n

As with any tool, the quadrant can only help you to take a step back, consider all your tasks and whether you’re managing the balance of important, urgent and non-urgent tasks in the most effective way. \u00a0Looking for clusters and patterns is a good way to spot trends in the kinds of commitment you are taking on, and whether you’re currently making objective assessments of the tasks in terms of their urgency and importance.<\/p>\n

It can be tempting to think that each quadrant represents an opportunity to “fix” your tasks and priorities in order to achieve some kind of perfect formula for productive prioritization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Shortcomings of the Urgent\/Important Matrix<\/h2>\n

I’ve already mentioned that the matrix can’t be applied simply as a substitute for other methods of organizing your tasks; the main reason for this is that it fails to take into account any dimension of difficulty or energy levels required to do particular tasks. Take my daughter to the doctor<\/em>\u00a0and solve world poverty\u00a0<\/em>might both, in theory, exist in the Urgent\/Important quadrant, but it’s easy to see that your ability to work on world poverty at any given point is going to be constrained by a number of other factors, not least your current energy levels.<\/p>\n

In the example above you’ll also note that there’s no sense of priority within each quadrant; you might have an intuitive sense of what’s most important (taking your kid to the doctor is number one, a no-brainer perhaps) but for many a process of more detailed prioritization will be needed, which the matrix can’t offer on its own.<\/p>\n

Embedding the matrix into your Organizing process<\/h2>\n

Whether you do it in your head, on paper or electronically, having a view of how the tasks you’re currently working on mapped to the Urgent\/Important matrix can help you take a snapshot assessment of where the key pressure points are currently, and where they might build up in the future.<\/p>\n

A more powerful application of the tool is to be able to start making more mindful assessments of the tasks coming in as you start to make decisions about how to treat them – the decision<\/em>* stage of Organizing as we describe it in CORE. \u00a0If you can make a quick urgency\/importance assessment initially, it may influence the destination of your task and ultimately when and how you go about acting on it.<\/p>\n

The final aspect of applying the matrix is about taking a much more introspective look at the matrix over an extended period – in which quadrant do the majority of your tasks belong? \u00a0Is this a nature of the tasks you’re inclined to take on, or of the way you assess their relative urgency and importance? \u00a0This kind of long-term self-analysis can be used as a feedback mechanism in order to make adjustments to the commitments you make and the techniques you apply when prioritizing and actioning tasks.<\/p>\n

If you bear in mind that the matrix is a tool<\/em>, not a solution<\/em>, learning to use it in these three contexts can have a marked improvement on your ability to assign a value to the tasks you organize every day and to help you establish a clear and innate understanding of the relative priority of each one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article first appeared on Alpha Efficiency Magazine: Issue 3: Organizing,\u00a0subscribe and buy here There’s an oft-referenced quote, attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who is said to have remarked: What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important. I’ve been trying desperately to find some more information about the origins of … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":7154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal","category-time-management"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Pitfalls of Prioritization and How to Avoid Them | Alpha Efficiency.\u2122<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Determine which tasks are urgent and which are important. 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