“There are simply too many things to get done. How am I possibly meant to know what to focus on?”
That’s how it feels for most business owners.
You’re caught in a never-ending flurry of tasks and jobs to be done. Emails, messages, decisions, problems.
There never seems to be a moment to come up for air – instead you find yourself locked into the day to day without time or space to step back.
And the more capable you are, the worse it gets, because everything ends up coming your way.
Avoiding the urgent trap is easier said than done
We all know that urgent tasks have a habit of getting in the way of the important ones.
“The squeaky wheel”.
Meaning that it’s only the immediate problems that get solved.
But here’s the tricky bit: it’s one thing knowing that you should focus on the important as well as the urgent, but making that change actually happen is a lot tougher.
Because sometimes, there are simply too many urgent tasks.
So what are you meant to do?
The answer is prioritisation
Most business owners assume that too many urgent tasks means they don’t have enough time.
But that’s unlikely to be the real issue. An extra day in the week would just fill up with more urgent tasks.
The problem is usually one of prioritisation, and beneath that, a struggle to let go.
I’ve heard “everything is urgent” from my clients time and time again. And whilst I don’t deny it can feel like that, the truth is that urgency is a habit.
A habit formed partly from putting things off. But also from over-prioritising tasks.
Sometimes it’s driven by perfectionism.
Sometimes by a lack of trust in others.
Sometimes just by being too close to everything.
Which means everything gets treated at the same level of high-priority – and then of course nothing does.
Not everything that feels urgent matters
It’s a scary thought – even writing that feels a bit intimidating to me.
But when I sit down with my clients and peel back the layers, we so often make the same discovery: very few things are both urgent and important.
In fact, plenty of the biggest stress-makers on their list end up being neither particularly urgent nor important when considered against their business goals.
Which can feel a bit shocking at first.
Prioritisation takes a simple formula
Here it is:
Urgent and important? Take action now.
Important but not urgent? Protect it. Put time in the diary when you can give it focus.
Urgent but not important? It needs some interrogation: can it be delegated or outsourced, simplified or plain ignored?
And if it’s none of these – then it probably shouldn’t be on the list in the first place.
It’s a simple approach, but quite quickly reveals where time is well spent, and where it isn’t.
So what should you focus on?
Letting go is never easy. When you run your own business, there’s a powerful urge to be doing everything all the time, and to only really have faith in the work you do yourself.
There are so many things you can’t control that keeping busy and rushing around getting jobs done can be a satisfying way of feeling reassured.
But – for the sake of your business – it’s critical that you make trade-offs. You have to accept that some things won’t get done, or be perfect, and that someone else might do them differently.
Doing so creates space for you to give the truly important things the attention they deserve without diluting your focus. The things that actually move your business forward.
And it will make all the difference in the world.
Try it.
If you’d find it helpful to have a chat about what success means for you and how to remove your daily blockers, drop me a line.
Kind Regards,
Chris