It seems to me to be rather ridiculous that it has taken me so many years to really understand on a gut level the difference between being busy and taking action.
It is not as if I had never read Steven R. Covey’s book on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, in which he delineates four types of activities:
- Important and Urgent
- Important and Not Urgent
- Unimportant and Urgent
- Unimportant and Not Urgent
He goes on to observe that we spend far too much time on the unimportant and urgent, and fail to set aside specific time for the important and not urgent.
For me at least, the important items can often come with a negative emotional charge, some type of fear that is blocking me from taking action.
The end result is that I waste precious time keeping busy doing the unimportant stuff in order to avoid taking action and doing the important stuff.
It is a form of self-sabotage. As my wise friend, Michelle Fought, points out, Sabotage is a block to our greatness.
When you are planning your schedule of activities for each day, I invite you to do as I plan to do for myself.
Look at every item on the list and ask yourself this important question:
Where you are keeping busy instead of taking action on the important, but not necessarily urgent items on your to-do list?
It is past time to kick self-sabotage to the curb, and to allow our greatness to unfold and benefit not only ourselves, but the world around us.
P.S. I cannot remember if Steven R. Covey gave proper attribution for this matrix in his book. You can find more information about the original source on this site.