When prompted to reflect on the long-term consequences of their decision between an urgent and important task, participants were more likely to choose the important one. The reality is – many professionals in this cycle might not even be aware that their ‘busyness’ isn’t actually productive.īut there is good news! The same study also found that the urgency effect can be reversed. And since they’re constantly occupied with urgent tasks, there is never enough time in the week for meaningful progress on their own priorities. Shockingly, 78.7% of people say they feel stressed by increasing tasks and lack of time to get it all done every week – but how much of that task load is truly important work? Professionals who get stuck in the urgency trap are often stressed and mentally exhausted from being overrun by other people's priorities. Though you might be inclined to try and finish urgent tasks first and then work on important tasks ‘later’ – this cycle ultimately results in important tasks constantly getting set aside to accommodate the never-ending flow of new, ‘urgent’ demands. They demand immediate attention and block your wider view of more important priorities that offer greater rewards down the line. Also known as the urgency trap, urgency effect, or urgency principle – this tendency actually helps explain why many professionals inherently struggle with time management.Ĭonsider urgency like a set of blinders that keep you nearsighted. The thing is, the human brain has a hard time telling the difference between the two (which is why urgent tasks often feel important in the moment). Important tasks might not be time-sensitive or have a deadline. Important: Tasks or activities that support strategic progress towards your personal and/or professional long-term goals.Urgent activities typically support others in achieving their goals. Urgent: Tasks or activities that are time-sensitive and require immediate attention to avoid immediate consequences.This psychological phenomenon is called the Mere Urgency Effect and suggests that people will pick tasks with a short completion window because they provide more immediate payoff, instead of prioritizing important tasks with much larger reward that would take longer to complete.īut exactly what is the difference between urgent and important tasks? Difference between urgent vs. In fact, you might usually drop whatever you’re doing to handle it right away because it’s obviously super important.Ī 2018 study found that when people are deciding what tasks to work on, they will consistently prioritize urgent tasks over important tasks – even when the urgent task offers much less of a reward. If you’ve ever seen a new email in your inbox with a subject line that included words like URGENT, IMMEDIATELY, ASAP, SOS, or NOW (with any amount of caps or exclamation points) – you probably know the panicky feeling that quickly follows. Covey highlighted this issue in the bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, reflecting, "most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important”.īut how are you supposed to know what is urgent and what is important when everything feels really important all the time? In this blog post we’re going to break down this ‘urgency trap’ and share 5 tips on how you can use the Eisenhower Matrix to better align your time with your priorities every week (free template included!). Even when you’re diligently chipping away at your to-do list every day – if you’re not effectively prioritizing your most important tasks, you’re ultimately undermining your performance in the long run. Worse yet, the work and personal emergencies you’ve been attending to probably don’t even align with the list of values you’d like to prioritize.Īuthor Stephen R. The problem isn’t that you’re not working hard enough, but rather that you’re working too hard on the wrong things. Have you ever looked back on a super busy week only to realize you’ve hardly made progress on your long-term goals? Although you’ve barely come up for air putting out little fires everywhere, got all those last-minute requests done for your boss, and even made it to every meeting on your calendar – you haven’t gotten closer to where you really want to be.
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