13.5
URGENCY AND IMPORTANCE:
THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF
MANAGING YOUR TIME
Inspired by Stephen Covey and Roger and Rebecca R. Merrill.This tool concerns the use of a leader’s most scarce resource—his or her time. How you spend
your time has a great bearing on your long-term success as a leader. One of the paradoxes of
time is that the busier you are, the more you need to take time to step back and examine how
you are using your time! Yet few of us are able to do this, as we get caught in what Stephen
Covey calls the Urgency Addiction. Daily planning often misses the most important issues,
whereas when you step back from day-to-day activities and prioritize on a weekly, monthly, or
annual basis, your activities are tied into a much broader and more strategic perspective.
This tool will allow you to examine and reprioritize how you use your time. Two criteria—
importance and urgency—provide an organizing framework for understanding the long-term
implications of time management on your success as a leader.
406 SECTION 13 TOOLS FORLEADINGPERFORMANCE
Activities- emergencies, pressing problems
- deadline-driven tasks, crises
- business necessity work
- crisis meetings
- rushing to meet important deadlines
- some (most?) administrative work
Implications- essential things done
- short-term focus
- crisis management, putting out fires
- stress, burnout
- working hard but with unsatisfactory long-
term results
Activities- preventing problems
- important relationship-building
- production capacity activities
- recognizing strategic opportunities
- visioning, planning, preparing
- renewal and thoughtfulness
Implications- on top of things
- vision, perspective, strategic
- disciplined, in true control
- improved control, fewer crises
- new opportunities captured
- self-confidence and balance
Urgent Not urgentImportant