Important but not urgent

There is a useful matrix showing “important” on one axis, and “urgent” on the other.   Even without fancy charts we intuitively know that we should focus energy on items of long-term significance, and not on unimportant emergencies.

One way to deploy this is to be vigilant about managing phone notifications, email subscriptions, and everything else in your environment that forces you to pay immediate attention to things that are not critical.  Urgent does not equal important.

The purpose is to create space for intentional living, and to stop reacting to every bit of noise.  The first task is to remove as many stimuli as possible.