Are you working in crisis mode?

Too many people are working in crisis mode. This is where activities become both urgent and important.

Instead your focus needs to be on doing what’s important and not urgent. This means that you will start to foresee any disasters before they occur which would put you in the urgent / important category of the matrix. Proper planning of projects etc and a focus on tasks will help you avoid this. 

Spend some time looking at the UI Matrix as it will help you start to understand where your energy should be put. 

Other sections include urgent / not important. A classic example would be email pings and the telephone ringing. Ask yourself “Can this be dealt with later?”

Not urgent and not important is the time you may spend surfing the web or gossiping with a colleague. It really will not bring any progress to your goals.