What’s Urgent? What’s Important?

As you are reading this, chances are very good, I am in a car with my wife and daughter somewhere between Memphis and Florida.  And hopefully, we are having a great time and my daughter hasn’t asked are we there yet? for the 50th time (but probably has).  We are vacationing and heading to Destin, Florida to a condo rental for the week.  And chances are very good there will be Corona’s and frozen drinks with umbrellas as well as sunburns and good times ahead.  In fact, this will be the first time our daughter will see the ocean.

The reason why I even mention this is because this is the first week long vacation I have taken in almost 5 years.  And it isn’t because I can’t afford to go.  It’s because for the longest time I have been addicted to working.  And this past 3 years, I have been realigning what I think is urgent versus what is important.

The Difference Between What is Urgent and What is Important.

In his book, the War of Art, Steven Pressfield says that you need to know the difference between what is urgent and what is important.  And once you know the difference, you must do what’s important first.

Translation-  Working is urgent.  Family is important.

Before I married, I logged in 12-15 hours days working online.  I was pretty successful.  In fact, I not only enjoyed it, I thrived off the success.  To put it simply, work was what defined me.

Marriage put a hitch into this.  Suddenly, I had to somehow balance work with wife and later, work with wife and child.  For the first couple years, I met this with resistance.

After all, if I worked less, I wouldn’t be as successful and if I was less successful, I would also be less happy.  I actually struggled with this much at my wife’s expense.

And then one day, I decided that I would work less.  I decided that I would do things like build crafts with my daughter and I made the time for talks and movie night with my wife.  I decided that gym time was just as important as work time.  I decided that it was the other stuff, not work that defined who I was and besides, the people in my life were those that ultimately would define who I was.

These days, I work a ton less.  In fact, I work roughly 6 hours a day.  And I rarely work weekends unless it’s necessary.  And I don’t look at the computer for a major portion of the evening.

In short, my priorities have changed.  Work less.  And pay attention to the things in my life that really matter more.

Should this matter to you?

I think it should.  I think that most of us who labor online whether through giving themselves to their craft, working diligently to make sure that their business is successful or sharing their services with others who need them, should do a life inventory and figure out the things that are important to them.

Because chances are most are focused solely on the urgent things.

image attribution-http://www.flickr.com/photos/captkodak/5942505484/

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