The Rhythm Method of Time Management

This article on prioritising tasks splits them along two axes - importance and urgency.

More interesting, however, is the discussion of the rhythm of tasks. Once you’ve split your tasks into the four categories (urgent and important, non-urgent but still important, urgent but not important, and non-urgent and not important), then many people find that they’re still drawn to the “urgent but not important” tasks over the “non-urgent but important” ones. The article suggests that the reason for this is that you get used to the rhythm of the urgent tasks, and so feel guilty for not working as hard when in fact you’ve just switched rhythm to the lesser pace of the non-urgent but important tasks.

That’s something I’m very good at doing, even to the level of trying to find more urgent but unimportant tasks to do when I’ve run out of them :-)