Some categories of work are like respawning hydra heads: the more tasks you do, the more tasks reappear in their place. Other categories of work are preventativ

Some categories of work are like respawning hydra heads: the more tasks you do, the more tasks reappear in their place. Other categories of work are preventative: the more work you do, the less respawning hydra work you get. The goal is to do more preventative work. To visualize this, use the Eisenhower Matrix: a 2x2 grid. The top row is important tasks, the bottom row is unimportant tasks, the left column is urgent tasks, and the right column is non-urgent tasks. Items in the top-left "important and urgent" box are usually problems. These are emergencies, and they're typically respawning hydra heads. It's tempting to spend lots of your time here, but if you do that, you'll turn into someone who's always putting out fires. It's necessary to do some of this stuff here, but where possible, you want to minimize your time here. Items in the bottom-left "not important but urgent" box are usually other people's problems and emergencies: people sending you emails, text messages, calls, requests, favor requests, etc. The more you respond to this stuff, the more people will send to you. This became particularly vivid to me one week when I was exceptionally on top of my email inbox, and by the time I'd finish an inbox zero session, half the emails had already come back as replies. Items in the bottom-right "not important and not urgent" box are time wasting activities you don't really want to do. The top-right "important but not urgent" box is really where you want to spend your time. These are preventative, foundational, strategic, and restorative tasks that help you live your life according to your values, act at your best, and get things under control. It's not just work stuff, either. It's taking care of your relationships and recreation and health, too. The more time you spend here, the less you'll see urgent work piling up from yourself and from others.