If you’ve ever looked up at 6 p.m. (or let’s be real, 9 p.m.) and wondered where the day went, you’re not alone. For smart, busy, hard-working professionals, time vanishes into an abyss of emails, meetings, Slack notifications, and “urgent” requests. We live in a world designed to pull our attention toward the urgent—flashing red dots, ALL CAPS email subjects, Slack pings that demand an instant reply, and phrases like “I need this yesterday.” And yet, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously observed, “What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important.”
The Eisenhower Matrix is a powerful tool for prioritization, and I wrote about it last year as a way to invest your time intentionally. That article resonated, and I want to build on it by unpacking one key insight: Urgency has a whole infrastructure behind it. Importance does not. And that means if we don’t actively give the important a voice, it will always get drowned out.
Urgency Is Engineered—Importance Is Silent
Think about it. Urgency has an entire ecosystem working in its favor. Algorithms, engineers, marketing teams, media executives, advertising professionals, and corporate culture all play a role in manufacturing urgency. There’s money to be made from getting you to respond right now—whether it’s clicking on an ad, refreshing your inbox, or reacting to a crisis at work.
Urgency is loud. It has a voice. It has flashing lights and sound effects. It thrives on artificial deadlines and the panic-driven productivity that fuels so many organizations. There is an entire economy built around urgency.
On the other hand, the important things in our lives—the things that make us who we are—have no firepower behind them. There is no CEO of sleep, no marketing budget for deep reflection, no ad campaign reminding you to take a walk in the woods or spend meaningful time with your kids. The important things don’t shout. They wait quietly, and too often, they get ignored.
Why We Over-Index on the Urgent (and What It Costs Us)
When we allow urgency to take the driver’s seat, it’s not just an inconvenience—it’s a slow erosion of what actually matters. We sacrifice sleep for another late-night email session. We scroll through notifications instead of having an uninterrupted dinner with family. We schedule back-to-back meetings, leaving no space to reflect on big-picture strategy. We get caught in the momentum of work, instead of stepping back to ask, “Is this even the right work?”
Urgency is a thief. It steals time from the important because it tricks us into thinking everything requires immediate attention. And in today’s world, where distraction is a business model, that urgency trap is everywhere.
Reclaiming Time for the Important: A Three-Step Fix
1. Name the Game
- Recognize that urgency is a well-oiled machine designed to grab your attention. Simply noticing this pattern gives you power over it.
2. Use the Eisenhower Matrix (For Real, This Time)
- If you know the Eisenhower Matrix, you know it divides tasks into four quadrants:
- Urgent & Important: True priorities that require immediate action (e.g., a family emergency, a critical work deadline).
- Important, Not Urgent: The things that shape your life and legacy (e.g., strategic thinking, deep work, health, relationships).
- Urgent, Not Important: Distractions disguised as priorities (e.g., answering non-critical emails, unnecessary meetings).
- Neither Urgent Nor Important: The time-wasters (e.g., excessive social media scrolling, unproductive busywork).
- If you let urgency dictate your day, you’ll spend all your time in the first two quadrants and never touch the things that truly matter.
- Predictably, Asana has a fabulous guide to using the Eisenhower Matrix, if you’re not familiar. And Atlassian offers a free template to build your two-by-two.
3. Schedule the Silent Priorities
- Since the important things don’t have external urgency attached to them, you have to manufacture urgency yourself. Block time on your calendar for reflection. Set alarms to go to bed on time. Make non-negotiable commitments to family time, workouts, or creative projects.
- Protect that time as fiercely as you protect a deadline.
Your Call To Action: Give the Important a Voice
If you’re feeling stretched thin, you don’t need another productivity tool—you need a prioritization shift. Urgency will always find a way to steal your time. The things that matter won’t. That’s why you have to choose them on purpose.
The Eisenhower Matrix isn’t just about better time management. It’s about choosing who you want to be. And if you want to build a life that prioritizes the things that actually matter, you have to fight against the current of urgency—and give the important a voice.