How to priorities things in life?

“Between urgent things and important things, what should you do first?”

That is what my ex-boss once asked me before.

I don’t quite remember my answer. But I remember, he said, 

“You should do important things first so that the important things won’t become urgent”. 

Honestly, I didn’t understand it before.

But, after reading the first chapter of The Boron Letters, I found the answer. I realize the connection between both of them.

Boron Letters is a letter from a father, Gary Halbert, who was imprisoned at that time, wrote to his son, Bond. Gary told Bond to go jogging, walking, or do some exercise first thing in the morning. 

He wanted Bond to put his health first, at the same time to get things done early.

At the end of the letter, there are some comments about what is behind it. The father’s advice is based on the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

In a brief, everything in our life falls into four categories. Q1: Urgent and important. Q2: Urgent but not important. Q3: Not urgent, but important. Q4: Not urgent and not important.

	Important	Not Important
Urgent	Q1	Q3
Not Urgent	Q2	Q4

This is what the four categories look like.

                                          

Often times, we do Q1 and Q2 first. Then we’ll move on to Q4.

But do you know what is interesting about this?

We should prioritize Q3 first. Why?

Because if we manage to get Q3 settled first, then nothing can fall into Q1 and Q2.

Let’s say we wish to maintain our fitness. However, we are currently free of any disease. At the same time, we recognize the significance of our health. As a result, we’ve placed this healthy lifestyle in Q3. 

Then, one day, we fall sick. So, to recover, we need to either take medications or practice a healthy lifestyle. Then, the healthy lifestyle that we put in Q3 immediately goes to Q1. It is becoming important and urgent and the list in Q1 is becoming packed now.

Interesting, right?

In my case, I went to the dentist last week. The dentist advises me to have a tooth extraction. He said that sooner or later I would have to do it too because it would hurt later. So, I decided to do it at that time.

By that, I’m avoiding it falling into Q1. I don’t need to feel the pain before I get my treatment.

There are so many things that we can avoid or prevent before it falls to Q1 or Q2. But because of our lack of awareness, things will turn out badly because we didn’t want to focus on it.

Also, I have seen this one video on TikTok. The creator said, 

“We will have two kinds of regrets in life. First, regret not having self-discipline. Second, regret of missing a chance to do it”.

We are going to choose what kind of regret we want to face. So, before the regrets come, we better figure out which things fall into which place as soon as possible.