Put Your Health First: Breaking Free from the Urgency Trap

Video transcript edited for clarity.

Ever feel like there’s just never enough time to do it all?

It can make it really difficult to prioritize those things that are important to us, like our personal health and wellness. Let’s talk about how to work through that.

4,000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

I was first struck by this idea – that the to do-do list will just never be done – when I was listening to a great book, 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. He used to be an efficiency or productivity expert and was constantly working on how to be more productive, to get that to-do list done.

What this taught him is the to-do list will never be done. That’s a really uncomfortable sensation to sit with – this idea that there’s always going to be so much more for us to do.

We tend to think, “When I get this task done, or this project done, or whatever it is, then I’m going to go back to the gym or then I’m going to sit down and take some time for something I really enjoy.” What happens is that time never comes. We just keep kicking the can down the road. We keep moving the goalposts and eventually we find ourselves years later having never done those things that we always told ourselves we would do.

The Eisenhower Matrix

One way to change this is something called the Eisenhower Matrix. I used to teach this when I taught Management courses years ago at SMU. I would teach students that this is how we can make good leadership decisions. It was even mentioned by Stephen Covey in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which is decades old now, but still relevant. Covey calls it something like a management decision matrix.

Essentially we can sit down, take out a piece of paper, draw a square, and divide it into four quadrants. One side of the square contains all those things that are urgent. The other side contains all those things that are important. When we divide our tasks up in this way, we come out with four different categories that we can sort all of the day-to-day tasks into.

We have things that are urgent and important. These are things like a crisis or a deadline, a client project we’re working on or an article with a specific deadline. These are things that are urgent, meaning they’re time bound, they have to be done and they’re important. They’re really critical to get done for our success or our longevity, whatever it might be. So, with these things, we have to get those done right away. We have no choice.

But if we move around to the things that are urgent but not important, this is where we end up spending a lot of time. These are tasks that require immediate attention, but they don’t really serve a higher purpose. So, something like an interruption from a coworker, it takes our attention right away. We can’t turn away from it, and yet it’s just not important at all. What we can do with those types of things is try to minimize it or make sure we’re not spending all of our time doing these urgent tasks.

Those of us who are caregivers tend to do this a lot. When we say, “I’m going to take some time for myself after I get the dishes done, and I pack the kids’ school lunches, and I return that phone call…” Guess what happens? We never get to the thing that’s important! This is called the urgency trap.

The third quadrant is for those tasks that are important but not urgent. These are things like caring for ourselves, pausing to breathe or meditate, exercising, and making a nutritious meal. These are tasks that are really important to us. We say we want to do them, but they’re so easy to put on the back burner.

The last quadrant includes things that are neither urgent nor important. They don’t serve a greater purpose. They don’t have a deadline. This includes tasks like scrolling social media. The best thing to do with these tasks is to think about them as time wasters and try to either not do them or minimize them.

Let’s go back to those things that are important but not urgent. The things that we need to do in order to care for ourselves, in order to be more successful at following through. We have to schedule these things.

And so I ask you:

Can you sit down, make this matrix, put your daily tasks into one of each of these categories?

Can you identify those things that are important but not urgent, that you keep putting on the back burner, and move them to the front burner?

Can you set aside 15 minutes a day for those things that are important but not urgent?

It’s a huge step in making progress in prioritizing your own health and wellness. I ask you to think about that going forward, to think about, as Oliver Burkeman said in his book, 4,000 Weeks, that’s all we have.

Our life is limited. Our time is limited. We need to prioritize those things that we say are important to us. The best way to do it is to identify those (important, not urgent) tasks and put them on the calendar or the to-do list. They deserve as much importance as all those things that are urgent. See if you can make this shift this week. Spend 15 minutes a day on things that are important but not urgent and let me know how it goes.

It doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. There are little changes we can make to prioritize our health and wellness and to live a healthier, calmer life. If you like this type of content, consider signing up for Take Five. It’s my monthly newsletter where I share tips and techniques like this. They’re all focused on simple science-based solutions for a calmer, healthier life.

Good luck focusing on those important but not urgent tasks this week!