Right now, my office is a mess. There’s a huge pile of things waiting to be filed. There are a few stacks of books that need to be sent out for PaperBackSwap. I have several pieces of correspondence that need addressing. The closet is overstuffed with all sorts of different things. The floor has a large number of boxes that need breaking down and storing (or disposing). My desk really needs to be cleaned up, too, with countless things that need to be dealt with sitting around.

Yet, whenever I look at the whole mess, I get the feeling described in the title of this post. Instead of dealing with it, I feel a bit overwhelmed – and I also feel like there are more urgent things pushing at me to get finished. Like writing this article, for instance.

So many of the projects that we feel overwhelmed a bit by are ones that fall into that “important but not urgent” category. Things like starting a good filing system, switching our accounts to a new bank, keeping in regular contact with old friends and key work associates – all of them are things we know we ought to be doing, but we put them aside.

Don’t.

Those things that are important but don’t feel urgent are the very things that are the keys to building the life that we want. It is the special person – the one on the path to success – who can put aside the countless “urgent but not important” things in life – like the new season of American Idol, the interrupting phone call, the latest social event in a long series of them – and replace them with the “important but not urgent” things.

Instead of going on and on with a lot more words, I’m going to stop this article right now and take my own advice. I’m going to go clean the entire office. Since this article is a nice, short one, why not take the few minutes you might have otherwise spent reading a longer article here and get a real start on that project that overwhelms you a bit.

See you later.