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They change jobs or careers in a bid to change things, but things do not change as long as they fail to recognize that keeping on shelving important work, to do urgent work, is a habit that needs to be broken and brought into balance.
Completing urgent work has its dividends in both the long and the short run. However, the question is whether the majority of those dividends are aligned with your long-term goals and interests. If they are, then you are blessed with a workplace and social circles whose needs are aligned with your career goals, and fulfilling each urgent task takes you a step forward towards achieving your long-term goals. If that is your situation, then this article is not meant for you. However, if the dividends of most of your urgent tasks do nothing to move you towards achieving the long-term goals of your life and career, then reading and understanding this article is definitely an urgent task.
So, what's the big difference between urgent tasks and important tasks? Well sometimes, important tasks can be urgent, and then there is no difference, however in our regular lives we are ruled by tasks that have immediate deadlines but have little relation with our long-term career goals. They help us to survive on a daily basis but rarely help us to actualize our selves.
Fulfilling each urgent task is important inasmuch as clearing pending tasks on your desk is important. However, long-term career goals rarely have set deadlines and get obscured and ignored due to the heap of tasks with immediate deadlines. The bad and dangerous habit that can and does develop is to keep on focusing on immediate tasks, as also trivial tasks, in order to take your mind off the important tasks whose deadlines rest solely with you, and which require greater and more consistent effort than the task at hand.
Have you ever seen a person who keeps postponing a vacation with the family to fulfill urgent tasks at office, and the stream of urgent tasks never end? Have you watched people stay late at offices and keep on working at tasks they could well complete the next day, and reach home when the children are already off to bed? Do you know of people who can never find time to learn and acquire new skills, though they are aware that joining a learning course could really boost their careers? Do you know of people who can never find time to phone their friends unless they need their help? All of these people fail to see what is truly important in life and get carried away by trivial tasks they perceive as urgent. Many of them are also scared to face important issues and keep postponing them by using the excuse of urgent tasks.
These are not unnatural but common bad habits owned by many. Such people appear as heroes in the workplace but come out as losers when it comes to family and social lives, as well as in the matter of attaining their own long-term goals of life. The only remedy is to recognize the weakness and face it, and understand that a workaholic is somebody praised by employers with a retarded mindset. Modern employers recognize that a person who sacrifices work-life balance is a good employee only on the short run, and it will be difficult for him or her to sustain a long-term relationship in the same manner. So, a modern employer will support and praise a workaholic only when the employer is bent on getting as much possible in as little time. Which of course means, the employer is sure that the relationship won't last. On the other hand, modern employers respect employees who set boundaries and are not ready to sacrifice their work-life balance or long-term career goals, but find ways to manage everything properly.
So, what is a workaholic who fails to realize long-term personal goals by keeping on postponing personal agenda? He or she is just a hard working procrastinator.
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