Urgent vs important plays out every week. You start Monday with a plan. By Wednesday, three urgent things have landed and the plan is gone. By Friday you've been busy all week and you're not sure what actually moved.
Most leaders know the urgent and important matrix. Knowing it doesn't help much on a Wednesday afternoon.
The problem isn't knowledge. It's that nothing in the week protects the important thing once the urgent arrives.
Your team copies you
Taurai Jack, who runs 300+ student units across South Africa, puts it simply: whatever level you lead at, your team sits about ten below it. When your priorities move every time something urgent lands, theirs move too.
"A level 50 leader gets a level 40 team."
Urgent vs important: what protects the important thing
Not more effort. Most leaders already outwork their teams. What helps is a fixed point in the week where you decide on the one thing that moves you closer to what you want, and check at the end of the week whether it did.
Do that once and it's a good week. Do it for a year and it becomes how you run.
Try it this week
- 1
Pick the one thing that would matter most if it got done.
- 2
Put time for it in your calendar now, before the week fills.
- 3
On Friday, check: did it happen? If not, what pushed it out?
That's the core of what Harvest members do every week, for 52 weeks, with a coach and a small group keeping them to it.
Would your team know what matters most to you this week?