More Time Management - Importance versus Urgency

Perhaps one of the simplest, yet most revealing concepts behind time management is importance versus urgency. Important items have a direct impact on your bottom line. They make you money and grow your business. Often, they are not glamorous or even pressing, but will have the most impact on your small business. Urgent items require immediate action, are visible, and often easy to do which gives us a sense of accomplishment. However, they usually have very little impact on our bottom line and can stagnate the growth in a small business.



Let’s take a look at Ava’s Catering Company to see how certain tasks in her business fall into important and urgent categories.

Important, Urgent

• A bid for a very desirable catering event needs to be submitted by the end of this week. This is a quality event and has a quick deadline. There is a tendency to ignore something like this, because the effort needed is heavy and just say “we’ll get it next time”.

Important, not Urgent

• Spending time at food service trade shows and other networking events that can assist in developing relationships with potential clients, other vendors, anyone else that can offer qualified referrals.

Not Important, Urgent

• Ava receives certain phone calls and emails that seem to need immediate reaction. If this is a customer with a specific issue take it, but in usually it is just someone else’s emergency. That call or email can be addressed at the end of the day.

Not Important, Not Urgent

• Facebook – Let me clarify. Facebook is a great marketing tool, it’s free, and becoming increasingly popular. However, just updating the status of your business, can easily send you into a four-hour research session to see “how that guy that was in the office next to yours, at that place you used to work, seven years ago, is doing”. This is fun, but IT IS NOT PRODUCTIVE. Yes, in theory he could become a customer, but be honest, he’s not. You just want to see how many kids he has. Update your business information and go back to work.

Take a look at the previous tasks. Where is most of your time spent? Remember the important ones result in revenue and the others result in stress. Take the time to identify the important tasks and spend your energy on them. The others need to be minimized, delegated, or just plain ignored.