Urgent-Busy-Important Work

Urgent Work:

Tasks that pop up “unexpectedly.” Often these are tasks we’ve forgotten about or procrastinated over that “suddenly” reached their due date. It is something we hadn’t planned or even considered doing at a particular time or on a particular day.

Our instinctive reaction is to jump to the rescue at the expense of whatever we had planned to do instead.

Busy Work:

Tasks that are on our to-do list forever. These tasks don’t move the needle of our success or progress in the right direction, but…. getting them off of our to-do list feels great, at least at the moment.

We think about these tasks as getting them “out of the way” and “finally off our to-do list” so that we can focus all our attention on the important work.

The caveat, by the time we are done with our busy work the day is over, and a feeling of dread sets in. Again, we haven’t done a shred of work that we know deep down to be far more important. 

Important work:

Tasks or actions that move us, our business or our relationship, or anything else for that matter, to the next level. These tasks follow one single purpose: deliberately following a goal and getting there.

These tasks are often scary, hard, challenging, something that may not come easy to us. We need effort, commitment, guts, trust in ourselves to do them. These are the tasks that, at the end of the day, allow us to grow, build confidence, make progress, create success, and find content and fulfillment.

No matter what we like to accomplish in any area of our lives, it’s the important work we need to focus on. 

What is your important work today that moves the needle in the right direction?

If you like to read more about this topic. Check out my blog post “Urgent vs. Important.”