Managing Urgency Part 1: Important vs. Urgent

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]I'm Brandon Smith. I'm an executive coach, and I'm the workplace therapist.

[00:00:04]One of the most common problems in workplaces today is everything is urgent all the time. We live in a world where everything is urgent all the time, and time is our most precious resource.

[00:00:15]If you find yourself in that challenge and opportunity, we're about to embark on a series on how to properly manage urgency.

[00:00:23]So, let's talk a little bit about urgency. We can use the analogy of hot sauce for urgency. A little bit goes a long way. A way to think about urgency and importance is the famous Stephen Covey/Eisenhower matrix, which basically has importance on one axis and urgency on the other.

[00:00:42]And the idea is to identify the things that are urgent and important. Those are crises and pressing issues. We want to get right into those. But then there's also items that are important and not urgent.

[00:00:52]And typically, we ignore those. And those are things like strategy and culture. Make sure we carve out time for that. And then there are items below that maybe high urgency or low urgency, but are not important. We want to ignore those.

[00:01:07]So, follow this series. I'm going to give you some more tips and tricks. If you'd like to learn more beyond this series, I encourage you to pick up a copy of my book, The Hot Sauce Principle, How to Live and Lead in a World Where Everything Is Urgent All the Time.