Focusing on our most important work (so that we can get it out the door and create value) is hard. It’s harder still when work suddenly picks up, is unfamiliar, or arrives with immediate deadlines when we are already busy.

The tyranny of the urgent often distracts us from what is truly important. We lose focus on the important and end up doing a lot of busywork. By the end of the day, we are frustrated. The real value wasn’t created, but the business was satisfied. We need to understand what “most important” means. It’s not always easy to just “know” which task out of the hundreds we have on our plate is the best to jump on right now.

When we visualize our work and limit our work in progress, we can see beyond the urgent and find what’s the best use of our time.

We can then sit down with our brains and have an honest chat. What do we need to do? What relies on others? What is stopping us from doing that one task that just sits there in our “options” column and doesn’t move? Why do we promise we’ll get those things done today, but at the end of the day they are still just sitting there?

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