Thursday, August 17, 2023

Important vs. Urgent

 Important vs. Urgent

I benefit from yesterday’s efforts. I also fall victim to yesterday’s procrastinations. The key is knowing which things need to be done versus which ones can wait. This requires understanding the difference between urgent and important.

Urgent demands our time, even if it has no importance whatsoever. Important rarely demands time, but requires it in order to not suffer consequence by neglecting it. The problem arises when we choose unimportant urgent things over non-urgent important things. This is most difficult to discern in the moment. Learning to mind the gap between stimulus and response to evaluate urgency and importance can make all the difference in the outcome … tomorrow.

Many times, choosing the important doesn’t yield immediate results. These are things that, if neglected over time, cause significant problems. Responding to the urgent usually yields immediate results, but often they have a very short-term effect. May you choose well today, for tomorrow’s sake.

1 comment:

Martha said...

I can see how important vs. urgent concept can be used with everything in life, even relationships.
In life you will have more important things than urgent I believe. But if you procrastinate those important things you end up looking back over years and asking yourself why you didn't act on something earlier in life.