Urgent v. Important - what's driving your career?

Why do we prioritise urgency over importance?

The simple answer is that we have been trained to jump when ‘urgent’ tasks appear. These usually have a time stamp on them, or are issued by those senior to us. We are obliged to fulfill our duties – after all, isn’t that what we’re paid for?

But there is a quieter voice struggling to be heard. You’ll need to find a space away from the hustle to hear its message.

This is the voice of what matters most to you – the important things in life and work. These are the things that, at the end of your life, you’ll remember and treasure.

In terms of your career, what is urgent?

·      Meeting a deadline

·      Joining that Zoom call

·      Getting the newsletter out – and read by more people

·      Hitting someone else’s targets

·      Doing as you’re told

·      Getting on, being promoted

·      Pushing to be noticed

·      ????

This is also the path of least resistance and requires least self-directed effort. It’s become a habit to work through your emails at the beginning of the day - right? You don’t have to think too much about that.

But the price for giving all your efforts to the ‘urgent’ is that you can become a sleep-walker in your own life. You are no longer making choices based on what you value, you’re merely fulfilling tasks. And before you know it, another month has vanished, another year, another decade!

And when at the end of your working week you don’t feel a glow of satisfaction, what does that say about chasing urgency?

The Flip 

How would it look if you made the examination of what is important to you in life and work a matter of urgency?

When you’ve made that choice, here are three suggestions to get to the heart of what really matters for you:

1.     Values – who you are and what matters most

This is about the real you – not the person you think you should be. Perhaps flexibility is more important to you than status; or maybe collaboration supersedes the race to the top?

Look back over this year and reflect on how you may have reordered your priorities. Is the call to align your work with your values growing stronger? Then perhaps now is the time to act.

2.     Wheel of Success – reframe assumptions

With thanks to Liz Fosslien

for the original image

This builds on the previous point but invites you to step back and take a broader perspective.

Ask yourself what you need from your work (beyond the salary) and then challenge yourself – is your current work taking you in the right direction?

To dive into this more deeply, just get in touch for a free guide to ‘Knowing Your Success Criteria.’

Just thinking about this and bringing your own metrics into focus is a step towards what matters most.

3.     The life you want – in the round

With your values and success criteria in focus, enlarge the field of vision even further.

How do you want your work to fit with the kind of life you’d love to be living? Perhaps flexible working is more important to you these days, or maybe you want a greater sense of purpose for your efforts. Is a country life what you really hanker for or are settling for the city because you thought you had to be there to achieve success?

I wonder what your ideal working life looks like and what might be getting in the way.

Be careful before dismissing your dream as ‘impossible’ – check that you aren’t making unfounded assumptions about the achievability of your ideal life. If you dismiss it before giving that dream a fair chance, it will never become reality. So clear some space and give your dream some air time. Let it breathe.

Finally, allow these reflections to sink in before revisiting the vital question once more:

what does this mean for how you might redesign how you currently live and work?

If you want to make a change, all it takes is one small step – and when you take that step the landscape has shifted too. The view is different and you’re on your way towards an intentional and considered choice.

Just get in touch if you’d like a gentle nudge, some expert advice, coaching through the transition, accountability, a friendly word of support and encouragement…

If you’d like someone on your side to bounce new ideas around with, stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone, and start taking those ideas seriously, I’d love to hear from you.