This past year has taught me many things. I think one of the reasons it’s taught me is because it has been so rough, so I’ve learned several big lessons through experience. One of them has been to understand what’s important and what’s urgent, and how and when to focus on each. Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”

Urgent problems are usually tied to somebody else’s goals. We tend to focus on them more because they have more immediate consequences, so they also demand immediate attention. Things that come up at work that require my immediate attention come to mind. Urgent things usually require meetings and involve multiple people, especially since the goals belong to somebody else.

Important problems belong to us. The consequences may not be immediate, though they may be more impactful than consequences attached to urgent problems. Important problems are tied to our own goals and outcomes.

By thinking of problems in this way, it’s easy to design a simple matrix that visualizes the relationship between the two.

The top right of the matrix is both urgent and important, the bottom right is important but not urgent, the top left is urgent but not important, and the bottom left is neither urgent or important. According to Eisenhower, items that are both urgent and important are highest priority. Items that are important but not urgent are next, followed by not important but urgent, and finally not important and not urgent.

This is a great way to organize and prioritize. If this past year has taught me anything, it’s that not everything is as urgent as we maybe were treating them. This helped me to see through to things that are actually important. I’ve struggled a lot over this past year. Honestly, I’ve found value in being able to complete other people’s priorities. I’m good at doing things for other people, but not so much for myself. It’s easier for many of us to focus on other people’s priorities, and not our own. Here’s another way to visualize the same information within the context of priority.

Thinking in terms of priority, you can see that things that we make our own priority should be considered first. If our priority lines up with somebody else’s priority, then we should put those things first.

I think this is so important because how we spend our time ultimately affects which outcomes we achieve. This isn’t to say that we should avoid service, this isn’t the case at all. We should definitely set aside time to help others with their needs. We still have to consider our practices and our outcomes. If anything, it only highlights that we should be designing our lives in a way that allows us to do both.

Take inventory of what’s important to you. What are your own goals? What outcomes do you want to see? What can you do to achieve those outcomes? Do you need to reprioritize based on urgency and importance? It’s an important consideration.