The Important and the Urgent

Prioritization is one of my key skills. And while it’s also one I can teach others by explaining the tradeoffs, at some point I also have relied heavily on intuition to help me juggle the “Important versus Urgent” tradeoff. I might look at a long list of tasks and conclude that the list really needs to be shorter, so it’s time to knock off some of the quick things. Or I might look at what has gotten done recently and realize everything has been a quick win and we should start building towards some of the longer term goals.

In writing last week’s post on the Time Value of Action, I realized that I could explain my approach as summing up all the urgent things that are part of one personal ideal into one “Net Future Value” of living my ideal.

When we teach the Time-Value of Money, we typically do so by having students calculate a million different Net Present Value equations to get a sense of how it works. For example, would you rather have $20 in 20 years, or $10 today? Well, with a number for the time-value of money, you can project either the $20 backwards (net present value) or the $10 forwards (net future value). When both piles of money are at the same point in time, they’re more comparable.

Compare this to the question of prioritizing what to do in a day. I might have a to-do list that looks something like:

• Work on some client deliverables I promised at the end of the week.

• Finish a client deliverable I promised to get back to them today.

• Attend all my meetings for the day.

• Make dinner for my family.

• Make sure we have the right groceries for dinner.

• Answer some of a million emails.

• Spend time with my family

• Stay in touch with friends.

• … And a bunch of other stuff.

For each task I have an estimate of the effort it will take, and therefore an estimate of what a full day might look like depending on what I try to complete.

The thing that is interesting is each of these activities has different kinds of outcomes. I can convey a trade-off like “If I were to skip making dinner tonight, I’d have more time for say – finishing something I promised to do for work.” But it is very much an apples to oranges comparison. Intuition / preference works to make the choice, but only if you’re already good at balancing your priorities.

The first step of using the idea of a net future value is to translate each of these into a decision-making rule. For example, “I cook dinner, unless XYZ occurs” is something we can project forward. If I cook dinner, every day I’m home (my current rule), I can project forward five years and assess. I find it easier to think about that net future impact on the world, and think about the outcomes. Also considering my happiness summed up over those years. I would not be satisfied with my choices five years from now if I didn’t prioritize spending time with my kids throughout that time. I would not be satisfied with my choices if I only worked on the urgent things instead of building towards my goals, etc.

When discussing this idea with my husband, he pointed out that fitness is an example where people already project today’s workout forward to their goal. We have a picture of the future state and the journey from where we are today that will get us there.

In short, I think breaking the important into urgent steps or summing up the urgent into important ideals can make them a lot more comparable. I will be testing out this insight in the future and see if it makes prioritization feel less intuition-driven. If the idea of the time-value of action or the net future value of little tasks resonates, please share your thoughts!