Urgent! Urgent! (Or Is It?)

By Martha Beck
Martha Beck shows how to prioritize when you're overwhelmed.
Illustration: Knickerbocker

If you're spending all your time putting out fires—and never getting to the things that really matter—STOP! Martha Beck shows you the chart that draws a line between must-do-this-minute time killers and "I've always wanted to..." soul satisfiers.

About a year ago, I watched a speech online about time management given in 1998 by Randy Pausch, PhD, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Pausch cautioned listeners not to waste energy on activities that seem urgent but aren't important. Choose instead, Pausch suggested, to spend time on activities that are deeply important, even if they don't seem critical.

That was an excellent speech. It would become extremely poignant in 2006, when the then 45-year-old Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Watching another of his speeches online—the famous "Last Lecture" (now a best-selling book), in which he teaches his three young children how to make their dreams come true—I wondered if this time management expert sensed, even back in 1998, that he'd spend less time on earth than anyone wished.

Pausch's work and his personal story drive home a lesson we all know but frequently forget: To live richly and avoid regret, we must give priority to things of real importance. But in a world where everything from your BlackBerry to your car's oil filter to your grandmother is competing for your limited time, this requires deliberate, consistent choice. The good news is that we can develop the habit of choosing what's really important over everything else. Life seems designed to teach us how to do this. Pay attention, and you'll notice that even when you're under "urgent" pressure to do something unimportant, it feels discordant and wrong. Do what really matters, and your life comes into harmonious alignment. Don't believe me? Apply the concepts that follow, and call me in the morning.
Life Support

From the October 2008 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine