Making the Essential Enjoyable & Easy
Making Monday
I've heard it said that how we feel on Mondays is one of the clearest indicators of life satisfaction. Here is a quick thought on how to make Monday—and every day—work better...
Journey to ENUA
Much has been written in productivity circles about how to categorize things to do and how to get important things done.
The good old Eisenhower Matrix—popularized by Covey in his 7 Habits book—is one such tool most of us know.
Recall that the model has 4 quadrants: Urgent/Important, Non-urgent/Important, Urgent/Non-important, and Non-urgent/Non-important.
Covey found that highly effective people devote most of their time and energy to important things that are not urgent (non-reactive). They focus on long-term projects that best serve their goals.
But what this and most productivity systems lack is a distinction that makes all the difference in the world…
Important versus Essential.
Things that are “important” can still get sidelined by distractions of urgency—by things blowing up in our faces needing immediate attention. Important things can even get derailed by compulsions and time-wasters.
But when something is Essential, it's in a different category altogether.
Essential things are life and death. They tap the core of who we are and what constitutes a meaningful life. Not doing them jeopardizes our being, doing, having, and enjoying everything most precious to us.
In my conversations with clients, we define the Essential. That's the starting point before looking to strategies, tactics, or quadrants.
We often find that something desired is not truly Essential, but is merely important. That's good to know, too. We can relax a bit about it and build some flex into the strategy.
But if something is Essential, we must uncover and remove the external and internal obstacles, then find ways to make doing it easier and more enjoyable.
Because action is non-negotiable. To negotiate it away is to compromise our core identity or something we love as much as—or more than—life itself.
The secret to moving beyond mere effectiveness lies outside the quadrants in a magical place I call ENUA: Essential Non-Urgent Action.
That's sacred ground where real and lasting transformation happens.
Together, let's end the fight to change—
Delmar
