Urgent or important? Ten tasks people get wrong
Urgent and important sound like the same thing until you sort a real list. Here are ten tasks that most people put in the wrong box, and where they fit better.
The two tests
Urgent: is there a real cost if this is not done soon? A missed deadline, a fee, someone left stuck.
Important: does this move something you care about? Health, money, people, work you are proud of.
Urgency is easy to feel. Importance is quiet. That gap is why the matrix exists, and why these ten go wrong.
Ten tasks people get wrong
1. Answering email as it arrives
Feels like: DoBetter: Delegate, or a set time
A new message feels urgent because it is new. Most email has no cost if it waits three hours. Check it at two or three fixed times and the urgent feeling goes.
2. Exercise
Feels like: BacklogBetter: Schedule
It never has a deadline, so it never wins against anything that does. That is the mark of a Schedule task. Name the days.
3. A meeting someone else called
Feels like: DoBetter: Often Delegate
It has a start time, so it feels urgent. Ask what happens if you are not there. If the answer is "nothing", send a note or ask for the summary.
4. A phone call from an unknown number
Feels like: DoBetter: Delegate
Ringing is the purest form of urgent without important. If it matters, they leave a message.
5. Backing up your photos
Feels like: BacklogBetter: Schedule
No cost today, a very large cost on one unknown day. Tasks that guard against rare disasters are important and never urgent.
6. A sale that ends tonight
Feels like: DoBetter: Backlog
The deadline belongs to the shop, not to you. If you did not want the thing yesterday, the clock does not make it important.
7. Planning next week
Feels like: BacklogBetter: Schedule
Twenty minutes on a Friday or Sunday. It is the task that keeps the Do box small, and the first one dropped in a busy week.
8. A favour for a colleague, "when you get a second"
Feels like: DoBetter: Delegate, or Schedule with a date
Kindness is important. Dropping your own work in the middle is not. Give it a time and tell them the time.
9. Learning a skill for the job you want
Feels like: BacklogBetter: Schedule
Important for the next five years and urgent on no day at all. An hour a week with a named day beats a plan to "get to it".
10. A bill due in three weeks
Feels like: DoBetter: Schedule
It is important and it is not urgent yet. Give it a date a few days before the deadline, or pay it now if it takes under two minutes.
Three questions that settle most cases
- Who set the deadline? If it was not you and not someone you answer to, it may be only urgent.
- What happens if this waits a week? If the honest answer is "nothing", it is not urgent.
- Would you be glad in a year that you did it? If yes, it is important, even if nobody is asking for it.
A rule of thumb for the Do box
If more than a handful of tasks are in Do, look again. Some of them are only urgent. A full Do box usually means the Schedule box was ignored last month.
For more sorted examples, see real tasks sorted into the four boxes. To sort your own list, use the printable template or the free Eisenhower Matrix app for Android, which asks the two questions for every task.