Focus on what’s Important, not what’s Urgent.

Dwight Eisenhower supposedly said:

What is important is seldom urgent,
and what is urgent is seldom important.

This distinction between “urgent” and “important” helped me identify the most frustrating part of teaching for me. It was the constant flood of unexpected crises. They prevented me from making progress on my actual goals.

The urgent always got in the way of the important.

This distinction of urgent vs important may help you realize why your program feels stuck in first gear; why you’re never making progress; why you have that sinking feeling that you don’t really know what you’re doing.

You may be chasing important-feeling ideas while ignoring what is actually, obviously, critically important. (Spoiler Alert: spending time in classrooms is the actually important thing.)

The Urgent

Here’s what “urgent” looks like for a leader in education:

• Your boss needs a form returned right now.
• A parent unexpectedly shows up during lunchtimeat your office to discuss “a problem.”
• The class phone rings. A teacher wants to talk about how your student broke a rule at recess.You are reacting to a number on a spreadsheet.
• A student knocks over another student’s cello case, breaking the instrument.You are creating yet another presentation for yet another upcoming meeting.
• An administrator went to a conference. Now we’re suddenly adding a new framework/acronym/idea.You introduce a new idea to your teachers because it sounded important. But you’ve never tried it yourself (or even seen it used in a classroom).

Urgent situations push their way to the front. They are loud. Their consequences feel immediate. They tend to be emotional issues. And they are often another person’s needs – not your own.

Urgent demands are frustrating because they force you to react without taking time to think. If I’m feeling overwhelmed/burnt out/stressed, it’s almost certainly because of urgent tasks.

I’ve learned that I have to put the urgent to the side. Or I’ll never get anything important done!

For a leader, urgent tasks are disconnected from people. They are related to testing, data, spreadsheets, documents, etc. They happen in offices, not classrooms.

Whenever a leader tells me, “Oh, I just don’t have time to get into classrooms” they inevitably cite unimportant but urgent reasons: spreadsheets, powerpoint, meetings, etc. But can you imagine a basketball coach who “just doesn’t have time” to watch the team play?

The Important

Here’s what important (but not urgent) situations look like for a leader:

• Read that education book that’s been sitting on your shelf for two years.
• Watch a colleagueteacher teach. Not to evaluate, just because it’s expected. Chat after school to discuss what you saw.
• Eat a relaxed lunch for the full lunch period.Try teaching ideas out in a real classroom with real students.
• Plan out that cross-curricular unit that will connect your teachers’ science and social studies content.
• Read a chapter from a novel out loud to your class after lunch every day.Casually talk to parents. Understand how they feel about your program.
• Take a full ten minutes at the end of the school day for students to clean their space, write down homework, and calmly exit the room.Take time to observe students in action. Talk to them.
• Spend 30 minutes a week reflecting on what went really well and what went poorly.

Gosh, those sound nice!

Why?

Because they are important! They have positive long-term consequences. They’re the things we know we should do, but just never get to. Those urgent situations always shove them out of the way.

Important needs become things that never get done. They sit on the “to do” pile for an entire career.

Recognize What Is Merely Urgent

As a leader, youYou must actively fight for the important because the urgent will never relent. There’s always another angry problem rearing its head, preventing you from doing what really matters.

But! Consider firefighters arriving on the scene. There’s a pretty darn urgent situation in front of them. But I’ll bet that they don’t just start shooting water at the nearest flame. They take a moment to observe. They make a plan. They figure out what’s most important in this situation.

If a firefighter can ignore a fire in order to do their job better, I can ignore my urgent problem for a moment.

I can pause and process before committing to action.

Those Who Focus On The Important

The teachers at my school who could minimize the urgent were the ones that I respected the most.

They weren’t obsessed with the latest edu-trend. They weren’t on a bunch of committees. They put minimal effort towards the principal’s latest hobby horse.

They were almost invisible around campus.

And that was their secret.

Because when I’d walk into their classrooms… wow! All of that energy I used up spinning my wheels? They were putting into instruction!

They knew that the latest urgency would pass, just as it always had before. So they pushed forward on important ideas. While I ran around putting out fires that other people started, they were getting better at teaching.

Do you know these folks at your own school? They’re worth paying attention to, even though they (purposefully) don’t call much attention to themselves.

As a leader, do you know which of your teachers are quietly pushing forward on long-term, important ideas? They’re easy to overlook, but are key to the culture you want to build. And they’re also the ones who will leave teaching once they get fed up!

To Think About

So. What have you wanted to get done for the past three years but haven’t made any progress on?

What seemed SO important 6–24 months ago, but ended up fizzling out? Is this a pattern?

What are your actually important goals? And what keeps blocking you?

Can you switch from 100% effort to only 20% effort on some tasks to free up energy for what’s important?

I’d love to hear your examples: ian@byrdseed.com