Subscribe now

Urgent vs Necessary - A Story

The two axis of my graph were urgency and necessity. Some of you may already be nodding your heads. Mapping urgency on the Y axis, as things move towards the lower half of the graph, they become less urgent. Conversely, with necessity on the X axis, the farther towards the right they move, the less necessary they become.

I then started to color coordinate the quadrants — red for things in the upper left quadrant that are both urgent and necessary, gray for those things that fall in the bottom right quadrant that have no need and no urgency. This left me with the two most important quadrants, the top right and the bottom left.

The top right is what we’ll call The Traps — these are things that are not really necessary but are signaling (nay, screaming) at you that they are urgent. They demand your attention, your resources, your time, your energy. They will eat you alive.

The bottom left represents those things that are necessary but no one is holding a gun to your head to actually do. This became the “Focus Here” quadrant on my graph. Things that fall into this quadrant are what create a life worth living. They build resiliency, they foster connection, they encourage stability. They’re your war chest items. And all too often, they get totally usurped and ignored by The Traps.

In 2005 I was cresting the ridge of my early mid-twenties.

On a Tuesday evening, likely around 6pm, I could very often be found at Then Boyfriend’s parent’s house. We’d go there for dinner, watch American Idol and spend a few hours. I’d play with their dog. Maybe we’d talk about the week ahead or the motorcycle training class they ran, or the weather.

I never minded those nights - they were fine and it gave us something to do in the middle of the week.

One evening, Then Boyfriend’s grandmother was over. We were seated in the living room, her in the chair, me on the couch.

I’ve notoriously never been great at making small talk with people that I have nothing in common with - and at 23ish, I didn’t have a lot in common with just about anybody (at least in my mind). I’ve also never been good at handling the elderly. In short, I wanted to melt into the couch.

The small talk was in full swing - I made mention of some future goals I had (mainly traveling related).

“I just don’t think you’re going to get to do all the things you want to do…”

Welcome to How To Do It All - one of my personal Focus Here goals, a place to share those pivotal moments that change us in ways we don’t even recognize in the moment, rant about the injustices of time and anxiety, talk candidly about business and, hopefully, thrive together as a renegade community of doers.

Housekeeping + What to Expect from HTDIA:

My intention is to post when I have something to say - which is generally one to two times a month and almost always on Sundays.

Free subscribers to HTDIA will get access to everything I write except for my Business Signals.

These are currently in the works but, in short, I'll be hunting down what I believe to be the leading indicators for the next business trend and compiling them into a report. They’ll be clear, easy to read and insightful if I do my job right. I haven’t determined the membership for that yet but will be making an announcement when I’m ready to beta test my first release. These Signals are for proactive creatives and thinkers - namely entrepreneurs, opportunities and marketers and I’m excited to see where they lead.

Subscribe now