What's a priority isn't always important . . .

Differentiating between priority and importance. . .

We all say it, “I don’t have any time. I’m too busy.” Right?

And to an extent, it’s true. The pace of life has increased logarithmically in recent years due to the advent of enhanced telecommunication, the internet, social media, etc. There are a multitude of ways for us to get distracted, and our span of concentration has been reduced to milliseconds. The result is that we have too many demands tugging at us and we don’t get things done. And unfortunately, sometimes those things left undone are the ones that might prove to have the biggest impact on our lives.

But if we step back and assess our daily activities, we’ll probably find that we mostly live our lives dealing with high priorities.

So, what is a high priority?

A high priority demands our attention and can include a range of activities such as:

• Submitting a proposal that’s due.

• Stopping for gas because the "empty" light is on.

• Picking up the kids when school is over.

• Answering the door when the doorbell rings.

• Responding to a text, tweet, or phone call when our phone buzzes or rings.

Due to our human nature, we can generally assume that we don’t waste too much of our lives dealing with things that are low priority.

But here's the real question: Just because It’s high priority, is it necessarily of high importance, and vice versa?

The answer is no. In actuality, the levels of priority and importance are independent of each other,

That brings us to the concept of what is important, and whether we adequately devote time to those things. Sure, there’s many high-priority, high-importance tasks needing our attention. A great example would be transporting a spouse to the hospital when the baby is due.

But what about high importance and low priority? Some examples would include:

• Putting a will/trust in place or updating it.

• Strategic planning for expansion or product development.

• Organizational restructuring to adapt to marketplace changes.

• Succession planning.

• Developing a strategy for college savings.

These are the type of things that don’t demand our attention as high priority, and we certainly don’t have to do those things right now. But they sure can prove important. These are also the type of items where procrastination kicks in, and they get deferred. . . Of course, that is until an emergency comes up, then they skyrocket to the top priority, sometimes, when it’s too late.

Put in the context of a 4 quadrant grid with priority (vertical) and importance (horizontal) running from low to high on different axes and running clockwise, we have 4 sections where we can spend our time.

If we analyzed it, we'd probably find that we spent most of our time in those 2 quadrants identified in red (all high priority):

1. Low priority - Low importance

2. High priority - Low importance

3. High priority - High importance

4. Low priority - High importance

When we really should be spending our time in the 2 areas labeled in green (all high importance):

1. Low priority - Low importance

2. High priority - Low Importance

3. High priority - High Importance

4. Low priority - High Importance

If we can make that change, it will mean that we'll be focusing on the high importance items most of the time, and filtering out the high priority, low importance items that are time-suckers. It would probably mean we get a lot more of the important things done, too.

It sounds simple, but in practice it’s hard. How about the next time you’re in the midst of an important and meaningful conversation or strategic project and you get a text or phone call, you let it wait? That's why God created voice-mail.