Monday morning, you promised yourself you'd finally put together the presentation for the new client. Then your boss asks for a number "within the hour," the 11 o'clock call gets moved up to 10, and a colleague drops by with "a quick question" that takes forty minutes. Tuesday is the same, and so is Wednesday. By Friday evening you've put out ten fires, and you feel exhausted and a little indispensable. You'll throw the presentation together late on Sunday night, like always. If that sounds familiar, you don't have a time problem. You have a problem telling urgent vs important apart.
Addicted to urgency
Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, devoted an entire book to this problem: First Things First, written with A. Roger Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill. Its argument is uncomfortable. Many of us aren't just swamped by urgent things. We're hooked on them.
Handling a crisis is stressful, sure. But it's also a rush. You feel useful, capable, validated. You ride in, fix everything, and the results are instant. Over time that rush becomes a habit, and when nothing urgent is going on, you find yourself looking for something to chase just to stay in motion. Meanwhile, being busy has become a status symbol: if you're swamped, you must be important.
Urgency also makes a great excuse. "I'd love to spend more time with you, but I've got this deadline." "I know I should exercise, but I just can't right now. Maybe when things slow down." Things, of course, never slow down.
One of the co-authors tells the story of an Australian executive who, during a workshop, suddenly realized he was addicted to urgency. Then he looked at his number two, who hadn't been like that when he joined the company, and added: "I'm not only an addict, I'm a pusher!"
Urgent vs important: the four quadrants
To break the cycle, Covey suggests sorting everything you do into four quadrants.
The first holds things that are urgent and important: the furious client, tomorrow's deadline, the problem that has to be fixed now. You need to spend time here, but many of these emergencies only become emergencies because we put them off or didn't prevent them.
The second holds things that are important but not urgent: planning, preventing problems, learning, preparing properly for a meeting, looking after your health and your relationships. Covey calls it the Quadrant of Quality. It's the only one that never calls you. If you don't act on it, nobody will remind you.
The third holds things that are urgent but not important: lots of calls, meetings and interruptions. Covey calls it the Quadrant of Deception, because the noise of urgency creates the illusion of importance. Often, if these things matter at all, they matter to someone else.
The fourth holds things that are neither urgent nor important: endless scrolling, gossip by the coffee machine. It's the Quadrant of Waste, the one we escape to when the first three have worn us out.
Two questions that change your week
At the start of the chapter, Covey asks two questions. He and his co-authors have put them to thousands of people.
What is the one activity that, if you did it superbly well and consistently, would have significant positive results in your personal life? And what's the one that would do the same for your work life?
The answers almost always fall in the second quadrant: communicating better, preparing better, getting organized, taking better care of yourself, seizing new opportunities. So why aren't you doing them? Because they're not urgent. They don't chase you. You have to go after them.
The time for that, Covey says, should come mainly from the third quadrant. You can't do without the first, and you already know to stay out of the fourth. But the third fools you. A good test when something feels urgent is to ask: does this contribute to an important goal? If not, it probably belongs in the third quadrant.
Big rocks first
The book includes a story that has since become famous. During a seminar, an instructor sets a large glass jar on the table and fills it with fist-sized rocks. "Is the jar full?" he asks. Everyone says yes. So he adds gravel, which slips into the gaps between the rocks. "Is it full now?" Then he adds sand, and finally pours in water.
Someone takes a guess at the lesson: there's always room to fit more in. "No," the instructor says. "The point is this: if you hadn't put these big rocks in first, would you ever have gotten any of them in?"
The big rocks are your second-quadrant priorities. If you fill your week with gravel, sand and water, there will never be room for them. That's why Covey says the key is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities. It's the same trap that hides behind the feeling of having too much to do: the more space you clear, the faster it fills up.
Your big rocks for next week
All you need is twenty minutes, on Sunday evening or Monday morning.
- Answer the two questions. One for your personal life, one for work. One line each.
- Review the week you just had. Put each activity in one of the four quadrants. Pay special attention to how much time went to the third.
- Pick two or three big rocks. For example: two hours on the presentation, two workouts, one dinner without phones.
- Put them on your calendar first. Before meetings, before email, before everything else. Then let the gravel and sand fill in the gaps.
By Friday evening you may have put out a few fewer fires. But the presentation will be ready, and Sunday night will be yours.
What's the important thing you never find time for?
Tell me what it is and let's turn it from "someday" into something that actually fits into your days.