By attending to the urgent we neglect the important

I think one of Aesop's famous fables "The Golden Egg Hen" illustrates this point very well.

A farmer and his wife one day find a golden egg, from that day every morning a golden egg appeared under one of his chickens in the corral, but after a very short time, the Ego and with him, greed, they push the couple to get all the gold from the hen at once and open it, but not only do they find nothing inside but they kill it.

Very interesting what is exposed by Aesop, in his story the importance, prioritization, the desire to obtain quick results, short-term (the golden eggs) and we neglect the important, putting our long-term well-being (the chicken) at risk..

Now, the urgent is associated with the task that “supposedly” requires immediate attention, I say presumably since in general, the urgent is what was not planned and needs to be solved in the short term, or simply said task will not it corresponds and therefore the delegation is failing. There are few occasions (around 5%) that it is indeed an urgent task, denoting the lack of planning of those who require the prompt solution and we have no choice but to attend to it and resolve it.

The important thing is associated with planning, it is closely related to the Vision and Mission of the organization, therefore, it requires a design, a projection in time and with it an activity planning.

If we neglect what is important, it will easily, in the short term, transmute and become urgent, if you allow such a metamorphosis, I guarantee that you will hardly be able to manage since you must constantly resolve the urgent and goodbye to Planning, Organization, Direction and Control, yes, goodbye to your duties, welcome the chaos and long live the colloquial expression "as it comes we are seeing"

My dear Manager, it is necessary to order the priorities and for this we have a good tool, the famous “Eisenhower matrix”, you will ask yourself, Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied troops, during the Second World War? Dwight David Eisenhower (1890 - 1969), in the course of World War II, was the supreme commander of Allied troops on the Western Front of the European Theater and former president of the United States.

The five-star general, in an interview with a journalist from Fortune magazine, revealed his secret for decision-making, a secret that we know today as the "Eisenhower matrix".

Urgency - Importance

This is all very well, but how can we determine urgency and importance? How can we distinguish between them? For this we can rely on the excellent article by Lago Fraga, "The difference between the urgent and the important" published on February 2 2012 in the blog «Organizational Techniques», where we find a clear definition of urgent task and important task. Fraga tells us:

Urgent task

It is a quality associated with time. It increases both as you have less time left by the deadline, and with the size of the task.

If two tasks take the same time to do, the most urgent is the one with the deadline before.

If two tasks have the same deadline, the most urgent is the one that takes the longest to do. If a task's deadline is deferred, it becomes less urgent. If you find that a task will be longer than you thought, will come back more urgent.A task that has no deadline will never be urgent.

Important task

It is a quality associated with consequences. A task increases in importance if the consequences of failing to do so increase. In other words, a task is important only if the consequences that we will suffer by not doing it are serious.

Two tasks, regardless of workload or difficulty, with similar consequences, are equally important. (Ex: it is as important to write a report as taking it to the right person) Of two tasks, although not at all similar, the most important will always be the one that causes the most serious effects if it is not completed. Even if the task does not change, the consequences can change. If they do, the importance of the task changes (increases or decreases).

Fraga proposes a formula to measure urgency: