Monotasking
How do you prioritize tasks?
“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” This food for thought from 1954 is the foundation for the Eisenhower Box, named after the 34th president of the United States.
Important tasks contribute to our long-term goals, while urgent tasks require instant attention. We’re performing important tasks when we act in responsive mode and performing urgent tasks when we act in reactive mode. Prioritizing urgent over important is also known as firefighting.
Once you’ve determined which tasks fall into which category, you’ll need to follow through with what you’ve prioritized. The more time you spend on urgent things, the more the pile of urgent work will grow. Other tasks that used to be important but not urgent will then become urgent as well. So what’s the answer? Start working on your important tasks, rather than the urgent ones, with monotasking.
Join Staffan for a free online webinar on monotasking: http://bookshop.se/webinar-monotasking
Staffan Nöteberg is the author of The Pomodoro Technique Illustrated, published by the Pragmatic Bookshelf and most recently Monotasking with Simon & Schuster. You can also read The Pomodoro Technique Illustrated on Medium.
