“When you’re up to your eyeballs in alligators, it’s hard to remember that you set out to drain the swamp.”

Many clients come to me in that situation. And they feel paralyzed with so many emergencies they don’t see how to get ahead. I’ll make this short for those of you who have to get back to your latest brush fire.

A useful distinction: Urgent vs Important.

All of the things that demand your time are urgent. Only some are also important. But some important things are not urgent. (doing your will, training your managers to manage better, hiring that new assistant). So those always get put off when there are too many “urgentcies”. The irony is that most of the important things will actually prevent or reduce the urgent interruptions if you’d only have time to do them.

Takeaway:

• At the start of the day, ask yourself this: What one thing could I do today that is most critical to achieving my desire? Write it on a 3×5 card and carry it around. Just one. Make sure you do at least that one thing.

If you do that each day, you’ll get 5 things done a week. Many of them will be the important things that are not urgent, and they’ll reduce emergencies in the future.

Bonus Takeaway:

• When something demands your attention, ask yourself if it’s important or merely urgent. Try saying no to a few of the non-important ones.