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The Battle of the Urgent vs the Important Blog Feature
Tim Cynova Post by Tim Cynova

By Tim Cynova on March 28th, 2017

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The Battle of the Urgent vs the Important

Big Ideas | Purpose | People Operations | Human Resources


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Throughout our lives, we’re constantly fighting the Battle of The Urgent versus The Important. If left unchecked, the urgent will fill our days, seducing us with its sweet, false sense of accomplishment and distracting us from the *important* work that changes the world.

In this episode of How We Work:TV, we explore nine strategies that can help you manage your time and avoid letting the endless list of urgent distract you from higher purpose work.

Strategies include:

(1) Pregaming your work
(2) Drowning out your distractions
(3) Creating meeting-free zones
(4) Letting it go to voicemail
(5) Leaving breadcrumbs
(6) Deleting everything in your inbox
(7) Checking email only three times a day
(8) Don’t clean your desk
(9) Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good

Want more tips to help manage the Urgent versus the Important? Check out Harvard Business Review’s Guide to Getting The Right Work Done.
More posts by Tim Cynova

About Tim Cynova

Tim wears a multitude of hats, all in service of creating anti-racist workplaces where people can thrive. He currently is co-CEO of Fractured Atlas (an entirely virtual organization with staff spread across multiple states and countries) and a Principal of the consulting group Work. Shouldn't. Suck. He serves on the faculty of Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity and The New School teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design; he's a trained mediator, and a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR). Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press. Also, during a particularly slow summer, he bicycled 3,902 miles across the United States.