How to fight the "urgency bias" (and work towards long-term goals)

The problem is that we’re continually bombarded with urgent work: emails, meetings, calls, and instead of being in control of our time and attention, we respond and act on someone else’s priorities.

• Deep attention means putting our focus on one task for a long period of time and putting aside other external interruptions.
• Hyper attention is turning our focus swiftly between different tasks, opting for diverse information streams, and looking for a constant high-level of stimulation.

• Break your big projects down into simple manageable steps and then set a short deadline for each.
• Switch from “task urgency” to “time urgency” , to choose what really deserves your attention.
• Don’t let urgent tasks control the first hour of your day. Set aside blocks of time for emails and meetings so they don’t sneak into your focused time.

Instead of allowing them to take over your time, make a plan for how you’ll deal with them.

Begin by defining the tasks that demand 100% of your focus and the ones that can be dealt with while being interrupted. You want to give your most focused hours to your most important tasks.