The Vital and The Urgent
Vital:
If you have a long term goal; -then anything that helps you move to that goal is a Vital Action, everything else is at this time,is not vital. Of course life must go on, there are things have to be attended to.
But from a filling a calendar with activity perspective -prioritize the Vital – the things that make a difference long term, things that help you move to your goal.
Urgent
The challenge is of course the Urgent things that fill our lives. Urgent things are activities that clamor for our attention – NOW.
The cell phone ringing, the email that pops up, the ice cream that must be eaten before it melts, the neighbors barbecue you must go to right now, the… (well you get the idea)
Those activities that have immediate obvious return or reward – and make you feel like you are accomplishing things, when in fact you are , to coin a phrase, ‘merely wasting time’
And energy
Universal energy may be infinite – ours is not.
Focus on the vital with your energy
Think about this – All systems that survive function on Vital activities first and then worry about everything else.
When there is a challenge to your bodies’ systems, injury, virus etc, the body shuts down everything it doesn’t need to fight the attack, and then only when health is back does it relax its grip on the rest of its systems.
You sleep a lot when you are sick because the body shuts down all non essential activities, like- staying awake and blundering around using vital energy.The body needs that energy to fight.
That’s how you achieve anything in your life. Athletes call it going into ‘the zone’– focus on the vital only, all else is ignored.
A great athlete tends to be one who can summon tremendous powers of concentration to complete the race or the tennis match or the golf swing. Focus on the Vital, first.
Now you are not an athlete (lets say) this is not an Olympic event you set as goal (lets say) so you have to fit things around your priority work.
That’s why you use a calendar and day planner. Create spaces where you only focus on the work at hand.
And done even worry about the next step, or the next week, or the challenge coming up when…
Focus only on what has to be done NOW.
Everything else may be urgent or important– get to the dry cleaners, pick up milk, answer the phone, fix the dent on the car – but none are Vital.
However its not an excuse to leave your spouse or partner with all the work suddenly (or is that always?) – learn to Prioritize.
Make sure that the Vital tasks in your calendar and DONE. Then cope with the rest.
for more details see – ebook Time Control
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Nice post Martin. I agree with what you’re saying. I think what happens to many people though is they are not clear enough on what those “vital” functions are or what goals they are working towards. In my case I keep a small WORD .doc of my current goals, short term goals, and long term goals.
I try to keep each list short and to the point. So I might have 4 or 5 short term “vital” goals. As long as I’m spending a good portion of my day on most if not all of those vital goals I can rest easy at night and know I’m moving in the right direction.
Sam
Thanks for your comment
I was thinking of a post on lists – so I appreciate the input