Urgent vs. Important are Not the Same: How to Prioritize Properly

I know exercising regularly is important, but I just don’t have time for it. Sound familiar? 

Our days are filled with phone calls, interruptions, social media scrolling, and trying to get the email inbox to zero. And despite being busy, you might not have done anything that’s most important to you and your goals—i.e., exercise, business planning, or connecting with loved ones. 

This is what happens when we prioritize the urgent over the important. 

The Pareto Principle states that 20% of your activities account for 80% of your results. With that in mind, it’s important for professionals to look at what’s important to reach those results and start prioritizing accordingly. 

Learning that urgent and important are not the same—and how to then prioritize your work—is essential to reach goals. Here’s how to do it. 

Urgent vs. Important Tasks

What’s the most common response to the question, “How have you been?” Busy. We’re all busy. We’re inundated with tasks and to-dos that fill up our days. And this can lead to stress, burnout, and feeling like you’re not accomplishing anything. 

The key is to learn the difference between urgent and important and prioritize accordingly.

What are Urgent Tasks? 

Urgent tasks are things that need to happen now. Examples include:

• Phone calls and emails. Our obsession with trying to multitask and answer every single email is one of the worst productivity-killing habits in the workplace. 
• Tasks with deadlines. 
• Emergency and crisis situations. 
• Interruptions from a team member to ask a question.

What are Important Tasks? 

Important tasks are those that move you towards goals, whether personal or professional. Examples include:

• Strategic business planning. 
• Health and wellness activities (i.e., exercise, therapy, cooking meals).
• Relationships and interpersonal communication. 
• Long-term projects like writing a book or starting a business. 

Urgent vs. Important: Eisenhower Decision Matrix

When thinking about urgent vs. important tasks, there will be some things that are easy to identify. We know that a kitchen fire is an urgent situation to deal with. We know that reviewing year-end financials is important for businesses. 

But other tasks are harder to identify. An email in your inbox might feel important to answer because it’s sitting there unread, but is it really? Pressing matters are often disguised as important, even when they’re not. 

The Eisenhower decision matrix is a tool that helps us understand the urgent vs. important paradox. It’s a method of decision-making that stems from a quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower, “I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important and the important are never urgent.”  

Today it’s best represented in an Eisenhower box. The box is broken into four quadrants:

1. Urgent and important—these should be done immediately.
2. Not urgent, but important—these should be scheduled with deadlines so that you accomplish them in a reasonable time frame. 
3. Not important, but urgent—these can be delegated or automated so you don’t waste time with them. 
4. Not urgent or important—these can be eliminated from your schedule. 

Here are two examples of the Eisenhower box: 

You can use this matrix as a filter for your daily tasks. Next time an email comes in, you can review the contents and determine if it’s important or not. If it’s important (and urgent), you answer. If not, you can simply delete it or delegate it to a team member. 

Why Prioritization Matters

Separating your task into these four categories is more than a fun thought exercise. It’s a meaningful strategy for all professionals and has a number of positive benefits: 

• Increased enthusiasm for your work. As you focus on what’s important, you’re also focusing on what’s creative, exciting, engaging, and stimulating. 
• Better overall productivity. Instead of feeling like a hamster on the wheel, always running but getting nowhere, you’ll be more productive and be able to accomplish your smaller to-do list of important tasks. Check out our article here for more on this: the secret to achieving more is doing less. 
• Reduced stress levels. Again, instead of trying to do it all, you’re only focusing on what’s truly important. This will help manage day-to-day stressors. 
• Better work-life balance. Urgent vs. important impacts both your work and personal life. Instead of letting the urgent dictate your schedule, you’re choosing to prioritize what’s important. This has positive impacts on your health, relationships, and mental well-being! 

Your Next Steps

So, where do you go from here? To start better prioritizing your tasks, here are a few steps to follow:

1. Audit your daily routine 

Spend at least a week taking note of what fills your days. Record tasks that were accomplished and those that weren’t. Then, reflect on these questions:

• How do I feel? (i.e., happy, stressed, exhausted).
• Was there anything I wanted to do but didn’t get to?
• Did I fulfill all my accomplishments? 
• What tasks helped move me further toward my goals? 

This gives you some baseline data on what you fill your week with and the impact it has. 

2. Fill out your Eisenhower decision matrix

Take your list of activities and daily to-dos and organize them into the four categories:

• Urgent and important—carry on and get these done.
• Not urgent, but important—make sure to assign deadlines and schedule time for these things so that you get them done. For example, if exercise falls into this category for you, consider these six ways to have a fitter lifestyle and make it a priority.
• Urgent, but not important—think about who you can delegate these things to or ways to automate the processes. As a starting point, consider these 9 essential tools or these 14 business management tools.
• Not urgent or important—they’re out of here!
  

3. Find an accountability partner

This is an optional last step, but most people can benefit from it. Share your decision matrix and revised priorities with someone who can hold you accountable. 

If these shifts impact your team members because you’ll be delegating tasks to them, make sure to discuss it with them. If some of the shifts impact your home and personal life, talk to your partner or family about the changes you want to make. 

It takes a big mindset shift to switch your brain from prioritizing the urgent to the important. It’s just not how we do things these days! So getting someone to help hold you accountable is effective when you’re starting to make these changes. Once you start shifting your focus from urgent to important, you’ll start seeing the positive impacts on your mood, productivity, and goal progress! 

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