Structured Procrastination: Urgent vs. important

Have you read or heard of Stephen Covey's 7 habits of successful people book? Well if you have then you will know that he talks about doing things that are urgent, may not actually be the things that are really important to you.
 
Do you spend all your days putting out the fires, and don't end up with enough time at the end of the day to work on the project you said you wanted to start today. The project that will bring you endless rewards once it has been completed. Unfortunately as with most things, it might be important, but the urgent always takes our time, energy and resources.

I know I harp on about diet and exercise, the only time your health becomes an "important" issue is when you don't have it anymore. So we "urgently" try and fix the problem. Which can be a bit hard if we've been told that our years of smoking and eating junk food has given us lung cancer and heart disease. The question is - is that cigarette or piece of cake so important to you, that you need it NOW or is the ultimate "goal" of life long health and being able to fit into a size 10 pair of jeans AND have the health benefits of not carrying around excess body fat that goes with it more important.

And what of those other projects we have lined up - for when we have the time. They're important to us, otherwise they wouldn't be on our mental goal list now would they? So why don't we spend time working on them? Because they might be important to us, but they don't register on the richter scale of anyone else...which is why we spend all our time putting out the fires of the urgent demands on our time. 

So a suggestion to you. Calendars, Diaries, Time and Task Management - Tell your nearest and dearest that you need a certain amount of time each day/week to set aside for your own project time. This could be - time to meditate, go to the gym, or write a book, and you ask them to set aside the same time so that they can work on their own projects. So when you do come back together again - say over a meal time, you can discuss how far you have all managed to get in the alloted time, and where you want your project(s) to go...

It takes time to set new disciplines. For example, I had to set new ground rules for my two children during the last school holidays after my daughter's school report wasn't as good as it could have been. Now before she is allowed to go onto MSN she has to ensure that she has

• done her homework
• had a shower and got changed
• helped with dishes - and occassionally she cooks dinner too
• cleaned her teeth
• cleaned her room

Oh the joy, her work ethic has changed dramatically - and monetary bribes were only part of the story. This morning my son has gotten up and gotten breakfast and put all the dishes away, and yesterday he made breakfast for me too. And last night he did his homework without prompting. Time and Task Management isn't just for "grown ups". Respect for other people's time can start with children.  But it's up to us to show them that we respect our own time to. So stop putting out the fires of "urgent" and start planning ahead for what is really important.