A few years ago, a teaching video circulated online that was intended to demonstrate the importance of prioritizing life’s big, important things — such as family, friends, health, and so on — over the “small stuff.”
In the video, the teacher fills a mayonnaise jar with about two dozen golf balls and asks his students, “Is this jar full?” It seems full – until he easily pours in a container of pebbles that fit into the spaces between the golf balls. Then he pours in sand and, finally, liquid, filling the jar.
Each time he adds something, he fits a surprising amount in the jar. Ultimately, he explains the metaphor: If a person were to fill the jar with small items first, there would be no room for the big, important things. It is a fun demonstration, but problematic if we are trying to prioritize a continual flow of urgent and important tasks.
I am good at completely “filling my jar” — just like every busy, highly productive manager I know. Successful managers learn how to maximize the big, important projects, the urgent to-dos, and the seemingly endless, yet important, tasks. The problem is, whether you are good at prioritization or not, the result is always the same: a perpetually full jar.
When you lead teams, however, you need the option to call on your team for periods of increased output and high-energy work without burning them out or diverting resources from other important tasks. As a CEO, there are some things that only I can do, and if my jar is full of urgent tasks, those important ones may get crowded out. Sometimes, we just want the golf balls in the jar. And, occasionally, a significant “baseball” gets dropped in. When your job is to handle the critical work, then a zero-sum calendar — i.e., a full jar — is a liability.
The only options are to either get a bigger jar, which inevitably leads to burnout, or, as I prefer, break the jar, change your assumptions, and start to think about time and prioritization from a different perspective, allowing you and your team to focus on the truly important things.
Identifying where to deprioritize
What the teaching video touched on is not a new idea: the most minor tasks will expand to fill the time you give them. Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said, “I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent things are not important, and the important are never urgent.”
From that statement, some experts have developed a simple way to think about the tasks that fill our time. Perhaps most famously, Stephen R. Covey presented a time management matrix in his classic book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, also known as the Eisenhower Decision Matrix.
The Eisenhower Matrix is an array of four quadrants into which we can place every project, task, or problem. The quadrants are labeled as follows: (1) Not Urgent / Not Important, (2) Urgent /Not Important, (3) Urgent / Important, (4) Not Urgent / (Most) Important. The lesson from the teaching video — that we should always prioritize Quadrant 4 — is sadly unrealistic for most busy people. Most are too busy drowning in the urgency of both the Important and Not Important varieties.
To avoid the urgency trap of a perpetually full calendar, most managers do not need prioritization hacks. They need to learn to deprioritize the right kinds of tasks.
Learning to delegate and automate urgent tasks
Try this. Write down everything you want to do and everything you do in a week. When you are done, assign every item on your list to one of the four quadrants in the Eisenhower Matrix. Anything that does not contribute to your health, life, or management goals is Not Important. Everything that has an immediate demand on your time is Urgent.
To clean up your calendar and pull weeds from your to-do lists, focus on the first two quadrants. The goal for Quadrant 1 (Not Urgent / Not Important) is simple: eliminate these with prejudice. These time-wasters often include social media, streaming videos, and other distractions.
Quadrant 2 (Urgent / Not Important) is a bit more complicated. Urgent tasks are demanding for a reason. They maintain your quality of life but do not necessarily add value. Examples of urgent but unimportant tasks include managing your inbox, assigning action items, and straightforward communications.
The best strategy for Quadrant 2 is to delegate or automate. A common way to delegate is with a personal assistant, who takes over your urgent daily tasks. Automation options are less common but are on the rise. Some programs automate aspects of your calendar, simple email responses, and more. Many are being built into the devices and apps you are already using.
Options for delegation and automation can be creative and depend on individual needs and resources. However, once you have identified those tasks and made it your mission to minimize their impact, you will find more ways to leverage your time, attention, and energy.
The idea of deprioritization is not about doing less, but about defining the value of your attention, being intentional with it, and creating opportunities for increased output without sacrificing elsewhere. When you can do that, you control how you and your team will take on essential or highly urgent projects. Give it a try. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
