
69
Chapter 11
How to Stay
Focused on What’s
Important
by Gina Trapani
Most of us spend our workdays in one of two ways: react-
ing to urgent demands, or proactively focusing on what
we decided ahead of time are our most critical tasks to
accomplish. The best way to be productive is to mitigate
the urgent to work on the important.
What’s the difference between urgent and important?
“Urgent” tasks include things like:
• Frantic e-mails that need a response “right now”
• Sudden requests that seem like they’ll take only
two minutes but instead take an hour
Adapted from content posted on hbr.org on February 18, 2009.
H5987.indb 69H5987.indb 69 7/16/12 2:28 ...