Urgent vs. Important: What Gets Your Attention First?
Prioritize tasks that will help you arrive at your destination.
Relationship-building is difficult work when you’re stuck on the merry-go-round of transactional donor engagement practices. We run fast and furious with great effort and exertion to get going but end up watching the same scenery pass by. We find ourselves exhausted that we’re moving fast but really only spinning in circles.
This merry-go-round feeling is created within our development team when we are prioritizing urgent tasks over important tasks. We look at deadlines and due dates over development and advancement. Relationships, after all, don’t have deadlines and without them, it’s easy to bump today’s donor engagement calls to tomorrow.
Urgent tasks are often reactive. They demand immediate attention. Urgent tasks can be emotional in nature and often feel like a crisis. They can look like this:
Organizational problems that demand your time but are also outside of your scope
An email from your boss requesting an update about a donor visit
The gala meeting you must attend to discuss the event menu
A spontaneous report for tomorrow’s board meeting
These are tasks that need to get done, but we must stay focused on the important tasks that will contribute to the long-term success of our organization.
Important Tasks Are Productive
This is where you will have the most productivity; it is hard work and requires discipline. Because these tasks are broad and without concrete due dates, they are easily ignored. Important tasks are the building blocks of transformational giving. Important tasks are the building blocks to transformational giving. They are time consuming, donor-centered, and ongoing. When we dedicate time to this type of work, it gives us the opportunity to be strategic and leads to long-term change. Important tasks are always worth the investment and look like:
A cultivation plan that provides a clear path to engaging the right prospects
A stewardship calendar that will be a guide to a deeper connection with donors
The development of a case for support to tell the most compelling story
Thorough prospect research and prioritization so that you are engaging people the right way
Strategy sessions that involve in-depth discussions about how to connect with prospects and donors so they will own your mission and vision with you
Get Off the Merry-Go-Round
It is possible for tasks to be important and urgent. However, most of your activity shouldn’t fall in this category. As President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” Think about how you currently spend your day. At the end of the week is it difficult to pinpoint any significant progress that you’ve made toward your organizational goals?
If you feel like most of your time is spent on the merry-go-round of transactional giving, we’d love to talk. We want to empower organizations to prioritize the important over the urgent so you can reach a different destination.