Make The Most Of Yourself : The Urgent vs. the Important

Of all the wisdom I have gained, one of the most important is the knowledge of the difference between Urgent and Important. We need to think what we are doing is the important one or the urgent one. Both are time and situation specific, sometimes we need to do important things but sometimes urgent things need to be prioritized.

We all know that time and health are two precious assets that we rarely recognize or appreciate until they have been depleted. As with health, time is the raw material of life. You can use it wisely, waste it, or even kill it.

To accomplish all we are capable of, we would need a hundred lifetimes. If we had forever in our mortal lives, there would be no need to set goals, plan effectively, or set priorities. We could squander our time and perhaps still manage to accomplish something, if only by chance. Yet in reality, we're given only this one life span on earth to do our best. We just live for once as we are now.

Each human being now living has exactly 168 hours per week. Scientists can't invent new minutes, and even the super rich can't buy more hours. Queen Elizabeth the First of England, the richest, most powerful woman on earth of her era, whispered these final words on her deathbed: "All my possessions for a moment of time!"
We worry about things we want to do - but can't - instead of doing the things we can do - but don't. How often have you said to yourself, "Where did the day go? I accomplished nothing," or "I can't even remember what I did yesterday"? That time is gone, and you never get it back.

Staring at the compelling distractions on a television screen is one of the major consumers of time. You can enjoy and benefit from the very best it has to offer in about seven total hours of viewing per week. But the average person spends more than thirty hours per week in a semi-stupor, escaping from the priorities and goals he or she never gets around to setting. The irony is that the people we are watching are having fun achieving their own goals, making money, having us look at them enjoying their careers.

Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire today. If you've just frittered away an hour procrastinating, you will still be given the next hour to start on priorities. Time management contains one great paradox: No one has enough time, and yet everyone has all there is. Time is not the problem; the problem is separating the urgent from the important.

Every decision we make has an "opportunity cost." Every decision forfeits all other opportunities we had before we made it. We can't be two places at the same time.

Even though we all are aware of the tradeoffs of "quality time vs. quantity time" in our relationships, we are not used to thinking specifically about how our decisions cost us other opportunities. Without this understanding, our decisions will often be unfocused and unrelated to helping us achieve our most important goals.

You may have heard the story about the analogy of the "circus juggler" to each of us as we try to balance our personal and professional priorities. I have heard the story repeated by many keynote speakers.
When the circus juggler drops a ball, he lets it bounce and picks it up on the next bounce without losing his rhythm or concentration. He keeps right on juggling. Many times we do the same thing. We lose our jobs, but get another one on the first or second bounce. We may drop the ball on a sale, an opportunity to move ahead, or in a relationship, and we either pick it up on the rebound or get a new one thrown in to replace what we just dropped.

However, some of the balls or priorities we juggle don't bounce. The more urgent priorities associated with self-imposed deadlines and workloads have more elasticity than the precious, delicate relationships which are as fragile as fine crystal. Balance involves distinguishing between the priorities we juggle that bounce from the ones labeled "loved ones," "health," and "moral character" that may shatter if we drop them.

The reason to list the benefits of reaching the goals is so that you can arrange them in the true order of importance to them and give them a sufficient amount of attention as they juggle them within their time constraints. Handle your priorities with care. Some of them just don't bounce!

To live a rich, balanced life we need to be more in conscious control of our habits and lifestyles. Actualized individuals have a regular exercise routine. They pay attention to nutrition, with lean source protein and fiber-based carbohydrates as their basic food choices. They relax through musical, cultural, artistic, family and of course spiritual activities. They get sufficient sleep and rest to meet the next day renewed and invigorated.

In addition to blocking periods of time for recreation and vacations, they also schedule large, uninterrupted periods of work on their most important projects. Contrary to popular notions, most books, works of art, invention, and musical compositions are created during uninterrupted time frames, not by a few lines, strokes, or notes every so often.
With your material, time, and energy resources allocated well, you should be able to use your innovative powers to focus on goal achievement. Effective priority management creates freedom. Freedom provides opportunity to make decisions. We make our decisions and our decisions, over time, make us.

Knowing the difference between Urgent and Important... that's what will allow us to live a rich and rewarding life. You may have thought your problem was "time starvation," when in truth, it was in the way you assigned priorities in your decision-making process. Have you allowed the urgent to crowd out the important?

Each day we will continue to encounter deadlines we must meet and "fires," not necessarily of our own making, we must put out. Endless urgent details will always beg for attention, time, and energy. What we seldom realize is that the really important things in our life don't make such strict demands on us, and therefore we usually assign them a lower priority.


All the important arenas in our life are there awaiting our decisions. But they don't beg us to give them our time. The local university doesn't call us to advance our education and improve our life skills.
I have never received a call or e-mail from the health club. The grocery clerks have never made me put back on the shelves the junk food I put in the cart, nor has a fast-food restaurant ever refused me a double cheeseburger and large fries because of being high in calories. The most important and most urgent thing as per current worldview and yet most ignored and most misunderstood one is that we never thought of giving some time to ourselves....only ourselves, where we can relax and be in the state of bliss ( Through the "Dhyaan" therapy called Brahm-Gyan or Self-Knowledge, which can be taken even in this era without any cost involved however, your true willingness is needed, If you already have got it, congratulations but if not, let us know and we would like to lead you to the path of peace and bliss, the path of self-knowledge. )
We never attended a presentation for how our country is doing in terms of growth, we never paid any attention to where are we heading day by day, moment by moment and yet we know which dress our friends wore in the office or college party.
And yes, We do receive hundreds of urgent phone messages and e-mails each week from people with deadlines.

You see, it's the easiest thing in the world to neglect the important and give in to the urgent. One of the greatest skills you can ever develop in your life is not only to tell the two apart, but to be able to assign the correct amount of time to each.

Beginning tomorrow, throughout the day, and every day thereafter, stop and ask yourself this question: "Is what I'm doing right now important to my health, well-being, and the ultimate mission in life?" Your affirmative answer will free you forever from the tyranny of what to do once you will realize the difference between Urgent and Important.



And if still you are in doubt that what you are doing is important or urgent or what needs to be done first as per your schedule........ Ask us by leaving a comment or mail us. Your id will be kept secret. For sure !!!

Best of Luck!!!