Master Class [163]: How to Focus on What’s Important, Not Just What’s Urgent

AT THE END of the day, do you feel you’ve met your most pressing deadlines but haven’t accomplished anything fundamentally important? You’re hardly alone. In a series of studies recently published in the Journal of Consumer Research, people typically chose to complete tasks with very short deadlines, even in situations in which tasks with less pressing deadlines were just as easy and promised a bigger reward.

It’s natural to want to get deadline-driven tasks off your mental to-do list. A paradox many people face is that