Important vs Urgent

For the last couple of weeks, I have been listening to motivational speakers discuss time management. Many people find it a challenge to get things done if they are not urgent. We all know the “urgents” in life!  They can be anything as simple as calls we have to return, to meetings we have to attend, to last minute stuff that we put off or forgot about, and suddenly remembered.

Every day has urgents. Picking up your child after school, taking them to baseball practice, or rushing to get ready for a 10am meeting that you’ve yet to prepare for. Anyways, you get the idea. What we fail to do is to make time for the important things in our lives.

What are the important things that we want to get done, yet fail to time and time again? It could be exercising, meditating, praying, or even getting up an hour earlier to prepare for your day. It’s “me” time. The time that we would like to spend doing what is important to us, to make our day feel productive. We should control time instead of letting time control us.

Now, it’s easier for me, being a morning person, to get these things done. I’ve learned that what doesn’t get done in the morning won’t get done later. I can tell myself that I will exercise after work, but there is a slim chance to none that I will get that accomplished. The most difficult times to focus on what’s most important are when we are stressed and not getting enough sleep. We’ll hit the snooze button on the alarm over and over again, and by the time we do get up we are already in urgent mode because we are running late. My friend is reading a book called “The Miracle Morning” Not being a morning person himself, this book has taught him that if something is important to him, he must schedule to do it in the morning. He has learned to wake up an hour earlier to make time to take care of what is important to him, his body, his soul, and his spirit. So I guess you really can teach an old dog new tricks. We can change some of our habits to make room for new ones.

It’s encouraging to witness this change. Is there still room for improvement? Sure, but at least it’s a start. On those days when I feel that I can’t get up early enough to fit everything in, I still try to do something positive for myself. We have to learn to make some things a MUST. Focus on how you would feel if you didn’t do it, or how you would feel after you did it. Whatever works for you: The pain of not doing it, or the pleasure of getting it done.

We all are driven in different ways. Every one of us is unique. Search and find what works for you. Start your day off right, and you will be amazed at the difference this can make with the rest of your day. The urgents will be taken care of. Why? Because you have to do them; It’s the important things that keep getting pushed back. I don’t want to wake up one day, 80 years old, never having accomplished what I wanted to do for me. This is the quality of life that each one of us is searching for. Don’t wait for this or that to happen before you finally get around to you. Live during the journey.

Comment below and let me know what you think.

 

Be blessed,

Bobbi