What are you doing today

Everyday we wake up, get ready and start the day with a list of tasks. There’s always something that needs to be done right now, someone wants something before lunch, some presentations by end of the day, some reports were due yesterday. And still, even after completing so much each day, the next day there is always some more that should have been done the day before.

A vicious circle. No matter how much you work, there’s always someone or something left behind. And the moment you think, now is the time for that favorite thing, well, you know something will pop up and that thing which you wanted to do for so long, will get into backburner again, one more time.

It’s frustrating sometimes. But, even after doing so much everyday how can it be so frustrating? Shouldn’t there be a way? Well, precisely. Glad you asked. Because there’s no answer, until there’s a question.

The trick to the way

The trick is to prioritize. And the trick to successfully prioritize is to categorize efficiently. And to be effectively categorized, you need to know what is urgent versus what is important.

“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” – Dwight Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.

Define Tasks

Important tasks are tasks that contribute to long-term missions and goals. These can be both personal or professional, but the most important characteristic is these are the tasks which really add value to what you are and what you want. This is your passion, your dream, your life.

Urgent tasks on the other hand are tasks that must be dealt with immediately. Most of the times, it is probably about achieving someone else’s targets. It probably has nothing to do with your goal, but it is urgent because it is overdue or not doing it has its consequence, so better get it done leaving everything else.

When we know which activities are important and which are urgent, we can overcome the natural tendency to focus on unimportant urgent activities, so that we can clear enough time to do what's essential for our success.

Categorize

This is how we will need to categorize tasks at hand:

• Important AND Urgent

This is the kind of work which needs to be done now and they directly add value to your goals and missions of life.

• Important NOT Urgent

This is kind of work which needs to be done, may be not right now, but you will eventually need to do this to meet your goals and missions of life.

• Urgent NOT Important

This is kind of work which is not aligned with your overall goal and mission of life. But, needs to be done to take care of the need of the hour and avoid any unintended consequence which will unnecessarily complicate your position and effect the time you allocated for above 2 categories of task.

• NOT Urgent and NOT Important

This is distraction. Why is this even in your list?

Prioritize

Once you have categorized the tasks, it’s time to prioritize the tasks. I think looking at the above category list, you already got some idea on what to do.

1. Important AND Urgent

Well, this aligns with your life goals and it needs to be done as well. So, DO it now.

2. Important NOT Urgent

This aligns with your life goals, but it can be done tomorrow. So, better to schedule it for a later point in time, but make sure you get to it then.

3. Urgent NOT Important

This one adds no value to you, so find out if someone else can do this kind of tasks. Essentially, delegate.

4. NOT Urgent and NOT Important

Delete it.

How it looks

Now once you have categorized and prioritized, you will be in better place. You have eliminated distractions and delegated unwanted tasks. And now, whatever remains, if it can be done at later date, let’s put that in the calendar with a reminder. And finally, whatever remains still, is what you do now. What if you have completed all the tasks and you have time left? Simple – start working on your life. That is, get back to your important list and achieve your dream.

In the end, it all looks like below.

You can do it

You see, we don’t need to do someone else’s job. There is someone else to do that. This is the difference between someone who is successful versus someone who is trying to be successful.

When you know what you want, when you have set your life’s goals, why spend time doing something else? Remember what is important can be either personal or professional, it can be both.

The important trick is to be honest and steadfast to outline what is important to you.