Feb 15, 2006 -What’s important?
Driving to work this morning, I passed a lady in an SUV with her paperback and couldn’t help but wonder… Yes, you heard me, she was reading a paperback and driving. Not certain how well she was reading, but I can tell you her driving was impaired. This is not a rant about driving while doing stupid things, but rather some thoughts about how we decide what is important and what just isn’t.
One can only conclude this was a very important book to the lady in question. With the absolute deluge of information coming at us day-in, day-out, it is easy to become overwhelmed. Its astonishing in fact you are stopping to read this today in fact. It is easy for most leaders today to simply sit and answer email 10+ hours a day. Of course, this is productive in one limited sense: making and communicating decisions is a core part of what we do every day.
The essential question though, is how do we decide “What’s important”? This is the art of balancing the urgent vs. the important. It is terrifically easy to loose sight of the important in the face of the urgent. No more Covey-isms here, but it is so easy to say and yet so hard to do.
- Start each day reviewing your priorities (don’t start with email right away).
- Make sure that in those priorities, you have included something concrete for your children, wife, family, friends, etc.
- Is someone on your team really struggling with something? What can you do to help?
- What are your boss’ priorities? How can you best help him/her?
- What one thing can you do today to avert a crisis next week or next month? Do it.
- Schedule your personal time into your calendar well in advance and make sure people know they can consult your calendar for your availability
- Expect more from the people you work with. Are they working as hard as you are? If not, why not?
And, as for the lady with the book, I’ll let you know the first time I see someone watching their video iPod driving down the road. It’s just a matter of time.