Self-Preservation
At a societal level, we have endorsed, developed and cultivated a culture which has become integrated into the inner workings of our everyday work life: The inbox. More fundamentally, urgency. Urgent tasks are often the loudest. If I have something on my plate which requires resolution — even if it’s not important — a simple email with a short time frame to amplify my cuntiness produces some exceptional results. And the best (and worst, depending on how you look at it) part is that for us on the receiving end of an email on fire is that completing urgent task are self-preserving.
The marginal benefit and costs of employing distracting behaviours such as urgent emails is too difficult to quantify. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly difficult to measure an individuals contribution to a firm’s output. The complex nature of decision-making and time management is a cognitively exhausting endeavour, so we have settled for shallow busyness as an acceptable level of productivity.
I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent — Dwight D. Eisenhower
Busyness masks poor effectiveness. Seeking admiration and praise for ‘looking busy’ while avoiding the needle moving tasks is simply a cheap trick for your own self-importance. You don’t seek truth or outcomes, and you don’t wish to aim upwards nearly as much as you want to be seen doing so. Again, the self-preserving nature of collaborative open floor office plans and face-time in the office is a vice for remaining stagnant, and a likely indicator of a lack of courage.
Just that you do the right thing, the rest doesn’t matter — Marcus Aurelius
The Eisenhower Matrix
The Eisenhower Matrix is a framework we can use to differentiate between urgent and important tasks. We must do so if we are to align ourselves with right action. The matrix is split into four quadrants (seen below). The top half of the matrix only considers tasks which are important, whether they require immediate attention or not.
Quadrant 1: Some important tasks are simply unavoidable. Last-minute deadlines on an assignment, unexpected accidents and pressing feedback that must be addressed are all valid tasks which require your attention. If they are urgent and important they should be prioritised and solved.
Quadrant 2: These activities are often the most important, but require discipline and proactiveness in the absence of urgency. Learning new skills, long-term planning, goal setting, budgeting, reading, exercising, cleaning your space are all great examples of this. If left unchecked, many of these tasks develop its own urgency, creating undue stress. Q2 activities should therefore be scheduled, and that time be protected against doom-scrolling and time spent checking your pointless emails.
Quadrant 3: Whenever we’re not in Q1, the next likely culprit is in Q3. The urgent, yet not important tasks are where all the self-elected distractions arise to derail your effectiveness. Most emails, most interruptions and checking your phone every time you get a notification are all examples of this. Your best bet for navigating this is to protect the access people have to you and reconfiguring the amount of pop-ups you’re exposed to so as to remain on important tasks.
Quadrant 4: You may be sitting in Q4 when you’re avoiding something more important. All activities in this quadrant are considered time-wasters. They do not require your attention nor help you achieve your goals, and should be avoided at all costs.
Conclusion
Seeking to differentiate urgent and important tasks is the fundamental decision between aiming upwards and simply carrying on. Urgent activities act upon us, so we must protect our time and avoid convincing ourselves that checking our emails all day will reflect positively on our future earnings potential and self-actualisation. Important tasks are hard and urgent tasks are self-preserving. Find the courage to prioritise the former and mitigate the latter.
What is acting upon you?
Just Something To Consider
🔗 Sources
Covey, S. R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Humans. Simon & Schuster.