How to Work on Important Things When You’re So Busy Putting out Fires at Work

"I am so busy. I've just been putting out fires at work."

My client*, a young man with self-described “workaholic” tendencies, was feeling overwhelmed and overstressed. He wondered how he could continue to work on what was really important in the midst of all this pressure at work.

He confided that, once again, he had spent his workday putting our fires.🔥 🔥 🔥(And no, he wasn’t working as a firefighter.)

While he didn’t share his full to-do list with me, I assume that its length was beginning to rival Leo Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace.” (Without the peace.)

And, he probably lost himself as often in his overcrowded email inbox as in the wife’s eyes.

In short, my client was pretty darn overwhelmed, and with good reason.

His experience is fairly typical for people living in the hectic 21st century.

Perhaps you can relate to the sense of being so busy and constantly putting out fires at work.

Each day, you might confront your “to-dos” with the sort of bravery a knight needs while descending into the dragon’s den. 🐉

Yet despite your best efforts, maybe you often find that you can’t get through the mountain of “things to do” into the realm of the important. After dealing with all the different action items vying for your attention, you might not have the energy to focus on your real priorities.

What's really going on?

According to this principle (that I just discovered), in the absence of conscious prioritization, the urgent will always swamp the important. In other words, as long as urgent tasks exist, the important will inevitably come up short.

Just like, as long as gravity exists, the apple will always fall to the ground. 🍏

However, unlike Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation, the “swamp” principle can be circumvented.

If you look back to my definition of the "swamp" principle, you will see the innocuous phrase “in the absence of conscious prioritization.” I included this in the definition for a reason:

while the "swamp" principle is strong, conscious prioritization is stronger. ⚠️

It’s similar to having an organized desk. If you just go about life without interfering, an empty desk will become more and more cluttered over time (another version of the "swamp" principle). However, if you take deliberate and regular action to make sure your desk stays neat, you can push back the forces of chaos.

So, what you need to do to make progress on the important is to take deliberate and regular action (aka conscious prioritization) to push back the forces of the urgent to-dos.

Glad you asked. Below are a few simple steps to get you started.

Please note that I said these steps are simple, not easy. While the steps themselves are not difficult to understand, applying them to your life is a whole other animal and I would expect some challenges to come up. So, please be kind to yourself in the midst of doing this.

1) Discover your swamp-less destination by getting clear on what you want to accomplish long-term. Where do you want to be in your career and in your life? 👉

2) Each day (or as many days as possible) take steps towards this destination. Begin by asking yourself before you start your workday: “What is the most important thing I can work on to get closer to where I want to go?” 💭

3) Then, before you start your workday, decide how much time you will spend on this important thing. For the first two weeks or so, I would recommend choosing something very manageable, such as 10 minutes per day. 🕑

4) Whatever else is going on in your work day, spend these 10 minutes each day working on the important, and ignore the swamp of the urgent (it’ll still be there when you’re done). If at all possible, focus on your important work before doing anything else. 👣

5) Rinse, lather, and repeat. Over time, you’ll want to increase the time you dedicate to the important. ♻️

That’s it! Take these five steps and you’ll start to take your power back from the swamp.

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*While the essence of my client's experience is true, some of the details have been altered to protect client confidentiality.