What I Do When Every Task Feels Important (And Urgent)
Success isn’t a game won by whoever does the most. Yet that is exactly how most play it – Bob Hawke
I’ve been re-reading my old books and sharpening my note-taking. I’ve been doing this by indexing points of interest at the back of my books for easy reference and further indexing by topic.
This week I’m re-reading The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.
The basis of the book is that by focussing on the most important thing, and eliminating or ignoring the rest of the noise, we make progress towards success.
This got me to questioning how ruthless I am in filtering tasks to get to what’s most important.
Dispositions, Productivity Traps & Disillusionment
Being someone who considers themselves relatively good at getting things done, I’m aware of the trap that comes with this – believing you can get more done than you actually can.
The second weakness I’m aware of, is my dislike for disappointing others. I tend to want to be known as someone who’s helpful who doesn’t shy away from work.
I have an inkling this is a relatively common scenario: we dislike disappointing others and consider ourselves quite good at getting things done —> so we take on slightly more than we should —> over time we get burned out – tired and cynical of the reward on offer for our efforts —> we end up disillusioned with our work —> until we’re temporarily motivated by a TED talk or Matt D’Avella video before the cycle starts again.
Perceived Importance
Anyone who’s ever been in a state of overwhelm or burnout is starkly aware of the value in being able to sort through what matters and what doesn’t, very quickly (you’ll also know the value of negotiating with your team).
But sometimes – when you’re in the thick of it – most things have a knack for appearing important. Especially if some of them are screaming for your attention.
You pull out the Eisenhower Matrix, but still, too much falls into the do-it-now quadrant. You split your lists into important vs urgent, but everything feels urgent. You pick your daily highlight but your mind won’t settle down to focus. The game of mental task-pin-ball starts.
But we know these perceptions are traps – urgent work is rarely the most impactful or meaningful. So, the question shifts towards how we successfully pull ourselves out of the daze of overwhelm in the moments that matter, daily.
Without ignoring the age-old tried and tested tools for task selection, I’ve found the simple exercise of looking back to be hugely valuable. Especially when it comes to taking into consideration your own specific situations and scenarios.
Good judgement is the result of experience and experience is the result of bad judgement – Mark Twain
The Wisdom of Looking Back
How many times have you looked back and thought – that thing that felt like the most important in the world doesn’t really matter anymore. How many times have you thought – if only I’d made progress on this a year ago, where would I be today?
Those questions can be as revealing as they can be infuriating.
But instead of looking back and kicking ourselves, I’ve found there to be real value in reframing this as wisdom gained.
Because looking back gives you benefits like this:
1. Looking back gives you distance
Think of an event a year ago. There’s a detachment that wasn’t there at the time. That distance lets you look at the facts of the time and see the logical or reasonable solution. It’s like giving a friend advice - because you’re detached from the situation, you see the path forward.
2. Looking back De-catstrophizes
Looking back with your new-found detachment, the potential negative consequences associated with a choice or scenario don’t seem as catastrophic..
My situation a year ago was that I’d taken on more than I could handle. I’d let myself fall victim to the typical scenario of trying to deliver for too many people. What I should’ve done earlier, was to share the totality of what was on my plate with the key players, and negotiate the projects I needed to drop. Of course, with my distance from the situation now, that seems like a reasonable strategy and set of conversations. But at the time I’d played out a made-up catastrophe in my head about what would happen if I did, and in doing so, suffered twice – once in reality and again in my mind.
Seneca was right – “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.”
3. Looking back means you start to recognise patterns
If you want to see patterns in play, all you have to do is look at new year’s resolutions. Most fail by February – that’s a pattern. Once we’ve seen the pattern we can start to look under the hood. Failure rarely comes as a result of resources. It’s usually a result of choices – conscious and unconscious. We make the unconscious choice that this thing we said we wanted on January first just isn’t worth it. There wasn’t a compelling enough reason to get the thing done in the first place.
Once you start to recognise a pattern, you start to build something you can work with.
For me the pattern was:
A request comes in —> I default to yes due to the fear of disappointing others —> overload ensues —> I push on for longer than is necessary or productive —> I become cynical about the impact of effort as a whole —> or worse, I develop a skewed view of what matters in the world of work.
That was the pattern. I had to recognise it before I could break it. And for me, seeing it and coming to the simple conclusion that there must be another way meant I had something to work with to break the cycle.
A Different Way Towards Task Selection
With the datapoints gained from looking back, I now look at task selection with a different lens. I look at task selection with the intention of maintaining alignment with my goals and productivity philosophy as a whole, while keeping the lights on - more on that here.
So, with that thought, here’s a reminder to self – once everything starts to feel important, look back. It might just show you the way forward.
Footnotes
Decastrophize - I first discovered this term in Shawn Achor’s incredible book The Happiness Advantage. The idea is that “our fear of consequences is always worse than the consequences themselves”. I highly recommend picking it up for yourself.
