I have posted before how all work generally falls into one of four categories.

1. Urgent, Important
2. Urgent, not Important
3. Not Important, Not Urgent
4. Important, not urgent

Today’s post I will use these categories to explain why it’s harder to start some work than others.

Lets develop and document policies and processes

Seems like a simple task but usually this number one on the procrastination list.  Boring!  Hard to argue, developing processes and practices probably is not the most scintillating task.

Worse they need to be documented, reviewed, aprroved and then communicated and implemented.  Who needs documented guidelines, we can figure it out – every time.

Of course the way we do it might be different every time and the outcomes – same story.  So inconsistent results, ultimately not sustainable.

Sounds Important, so why is it not a high priority?

Intuitively it is natural to prioritize tasks in categories 1 & 2, they are urgent afterall.  Puzzling though how category 2 gets a priority although it is not important.  Urgency though is in your face so reasoned prioritization does not always apply.

Category 3 are easy to do.  No pressure and they are not important so no one really cares.  Keeps you busy though and low stress so surprisingly they often get a higher priority than caregory 1.  (Notwithstanding the fact they are generally a waste of time).

I’ll get to it when I have a chance

And there you have it, we rarely get around to the important not urgent tasks.  They are not urgent so we can survive without them.  No one is bugging us to get it done and although the benefit of completing important tasks is usually high it’s not visible.

You have to think about the benefits, they are usually not obvious.  Lack of documentation leads to rework, inefficiencies and often poor quality and high cost yet usually is the last item to get addresses , if at all.