The author Steven Covey finds it helpful to classify tasks according to whether they are important and whether they are urgent. He notes that busy people spend their time on tasks that are both urgent and important. This is what it means to be working on a deadline. We get a burst of output working on the tasks that matter and that are due very soon. We would call this a focus dividend. At the same time, he argues, busy people tend to neglect the important but not urgent tasks.
