Urgent, Important or Neither

My return to real life slapped me square in the face on my first day back to the office. Somehow all my work and personal to-do lists were suddenly screaming at me simultaneously, reminding me how behind in LIFE I am right now.

Somehow the car went to service level DEFCON 1 in 24 hours...

I used to help teach a class for managers that included a component on time management. The key concept was the time tested Franklin Covey developed "Urgent/Important Matrix", which is a tool you can use to decide how to budget your time. Sounds like something that could be helpful in a situation like this, right?

Courtesy Merrill and Covey - "First Things First" (1994) via Wikipedia

This time, not so much. It's a great tool for normal everyday planning. But sometimes you need an even simpler process to help you feel better about having too much to do and not enough hours in the day. So here's a simple list I developed to help set some REAL priorities.

If you don't get "X" done today....
1) Will someone die (including you)?
2) Do you risk imprisonment?
3) Will it cost you more money if you wait?

If the answer to all of the above questions is no, it doesn't HAVE to get done today. So take a deep breath, open a nice beverage of your choosing and relax. It will all get done eventually, and if it doesn't it probably wasn't urgent or important enough to matter much anyway.

In case you're wondering, nothing on my list required a "yes" answer. Now where is the wine opener?