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Urgent, impor­tant, or both

One pop­u­lar way to address the issue of what to pri­or­i­tize is to deter­mine if a task is urgent or not, then if it is impor­tant or not, and then put it in the right place in some kind of mod­el (many peo­ple use a four-field matrix) or sys­tem. I like the important/​urgent mod­el since it is easy enough to remem­ber and clever enough to cov­er most of the tasks we have to do.

What makes a task important

The trick is to deter­mine what cri­te­ria decide if a task is impor­tant or not. Too many of the peo­ple I talk to about pri­or­i­ties have still not done this and instead trust their gut way too much. If the task feels impor­tant, they regard it as important.

In my sec­ond book, which is about pri­or­i­tiz­ing accu­rate­ly so that we can focus on the right goals (but which is not yet trans­lat­ed into Eng­lish), I argue that the indi­vid­ual goals you are respon­si­ble for in the busi­ness you run or work in are what should deter­mine if a task is impor­tant or not. You set goals to see if (and make sure that) you suc­ceed in what you wish to accom­plish. Tasks that help you attain these goals should be con­sid­ered important.

Goal-less = groundless?

But, some of my clients do not have clear­ly defined goals. They are not used to set­ting goals and their col­leagues do not have any goals either. Their boss con­sid­ers goals to be some­thing you are sup­posed to have but when it comes down to it, the goals they set are not used to active­ly guide the every­day deci­sions and for­ward motion and are some­thing they fol­low up on a few times a year only because they feel they have to.

Do my clients real­ly have to have goals to be able to pri­or­i­tize accu­rate­ly or could they have a decent sit­u­a­tion at work in terms of get­ting the right things done with­out for­get­ting any­thing or get­ting too stressed? Sure, in a short-term per­spec­tive they can still pri­or­i­tize the right things in spite of not hav­ing goals.

Do this

Do you also lack clear­ly defined or obvi­ous goals that could help you deter­mine what is impor­tant, but still want to be able to lean on some­thing when pri­or­i­tiz­ing? If so, do these three things:

1. Take a few min­utes to list a few things you believe are the most impor­tant right now. Is there a project that needs to be done before every­thing else right now? Do ques­tions from clients have to come first? Do you have cer­tain tasks that con­sti­tute the core of your respon­si­bil­i­ties and which should always be pri­or­i­tized before oth­er things?
2. Check-in with your boss so that you both agree on what sub­jects, themes, or tasks (hope­ful­ly those you just list­ed) that are the most impor­tant in your work so that you can use these to guide your priorities.
3. Alright. Now you at least know what is impor­tant. How will you know when you have suc­cess­ful­ly done the impor­tant things? You could, for instance, think of some­thing that is mea­sur­able for every area or task and which you could fol­low up on over time such as a vol­ume, a lev­el, a speed, a qual­i­ty, or some oth­er quan­ti­ty. If you do this, you have actu­al­ly set a goal for your­self — at least a spon­ta­neous one to work with!

Urgent/​Important IRL

It is only after you have fig­ured out what is impor­tant, or most impor­tant, in your work that you can uti­lize the pop­u­lar urgent/​important mod­el to deter­mine which out of all your tasks you ought to do next. It will also become eas­i­er to say no (or ​“yes, but lat­er”) to things that are less impor­tant than what is on your list at the moment. You will be in more con­trol of your pri­or­i­ti­za­tion and plan­ning, and less at the mer­cy of whims and cir­cum­stances. This will be well worth the small effort required if you ask me.

What’s your way?

How have you fig­ured out what is most impor­tant in your job? Please share your thoughts!

(Look­ing for more ways to get things done effi­cient­ly? Take a look at how to com­plete the small things in a few hours!)