My post on Saturdays used the analogy of firefighting to help explain the concept of urgency and importance as it relates to your priorities. Urgent/ Important represented the equivalent of fire fighting.
On the other hand Important/ Not Urgent activities are often subject to procrastination, they get a default priority. That is we’ll get to them when we get to them, the motivation to do the task is not obvious.
How focusing on important not urgent makes a diiference
Consider the fire-persons ( formerly known as firemen) sitting around the fire house waiting for an alarm.
Actively promoting fire prevention awareness to the community is important. Fire prevention training , while important is not urgent (obviously not as urgent as fighting an active fire). However, fire prevention reduces fires and so there is less firefighting.
Effective fire prevention results in less fires, leading to less fire fighting, so more time for important activities like fire prevention. It’s a positive upward spiral – focusing on the important not urgent reduces the important – urgent (i.e., less firefighting).
Less firefighting means less of the damage that is typically associated with fires.
A Real Life Example
Without providing details, in order to protect the innocent, here’s a real example of this I recently observed.
An organization I am familiar with recently completed some major technology changes. Not unexpectedly this created many fires. The majority of the resources focused on putting out the fires. And, immediately as one fire was out three more sprung up in it’s place.
The fire fighters were clearly getting exhausted. The good news, and point of the story a small group of leaders in the organization took it upon themselves to identify the root causes, craft short, medium and long term strategies to address these along with specific action plans.
While creating the strategies did not appear urgent, nor provide immediate satisfaction, the key outcome of the strategic planning was a structured and methodical approach to issue management. Within two months, no more fires. Fires which might have continued for another 6 months or a year otherwise.