The Importance Trap | Hacker News Reader

The Importance Trap

brianlui.dog

67 pointsZephyrBlu26 comments

The answer depends on the risk profile of your situation. If you are the military then you have much more to lose from something random and unexpected than to gain from it. So it makes sense to eliminate the quadrant IV.

If you are in a different situation, say a student or an early career employee, the upside of Quadrant I and II are probably known and limited. Though Quadrant IV can potentially bring in large unknown gains. Example, minting bitcoins in 2010 was unimportant and non urgent activity, those who did this activity gained a ton.

> Example, minting bitcoins in 2010 was unimportant and non urgent activity, those who did this activity gained a ton.

This take completely ignores time as dimension. It is incorrect to think minting bitcoins in 2010 was unimportant. In retrospective it was very important.

Everything could have been potentially important in hindsight. Back in the day nobody knew that bitcoin would become an object of speculation.

I recall paying for coffea with bitcoin and the payment took 30 minutes despite higher transaction fee than paypal. In this metric bitcoin still is worthless today.

The point is that quadrants are moot because you might not really know what belongs to which quadrant - only make guesses.

The article argues that non-urgent non-important things still have value, but I'm not sure that's a good way of looking at the matter; it sounds like given the examples (playing an instrument, ...) are actually important in the author's value system and were just misclassified as not being so.

Yes. I think that it is cultural. There are cultures were work that earns money is more important that your own time or even your own family. That puts some very important things in the 'not important' classification.

If the importance of an activity can't be appreciated without throwing yourself into it, then how can you tell whether it's actually unimportant or just apparently so? You have to do things from quadrant IV before you realize they're miscategorized.

*You have to do things from "what we think quadrant IV is" before you realize they're miscategorized.

I think there is “obviously important” and “meta important”.

Two of the quadrants are “obviously important” work.

A third quadrant is labeled unimportant, but clearly is “meta important”, even though it contains many tasks which are not important individually.

But still meta important to do some of this work.

And I agree the fourth quadrant, doing some non-urgent unimportant things in life, is very meta important.

Unstructured activity contributes to creativity and recharging in the other three quadrants for me at least.

The second sentence frames the purpose of the matrix: "[The Eisenhower matrix] maximizes your productivity". The 2nd graphic also describes what Quadrant 4 tasks look like.

It has nothing to do with the author's value system, and redefining the matrix misses the main point of the article: you should have more serendipity in your life.

The entire purpose of the article is to value those things, I don't think their value is understated. Maybe the statement of purpose of the article is?

In Covey’s advice, activities presented here in Q4 fall under “sharpen the saw,” where you make time each week to do things that restore you and bring you pleasure. He also advises creating multiple roles for everything important in your life and prioritizing each every day or week. These roles are supposed to be numerous so they completely represent you and can include musician, sandwich artist, explorer, flaneur, antifragilist, and other Venkat-Rao-approved identities.

I believe the Eisenhower Matrix's biggest flaw is the lack of an "amount of work needed" dimension.

Completing an otherwise non-urgent, non-important task that takes 2 seconds is very different from one that takes 2 months. And often enough those tasks stack up. I don't get this reflexive need to "eliminate".

I value myself not when I do what is called the commanding duty of this Monday or Tuesday, but when I leave it to do the duty of a remote day, as, for instance, to write a line, or find a new fact, a missing link, in my Essay on "Memory" or on "Imagination".

- Emerson, journals, ~1858, Vol 14 p15.

I recognized this need in myself a few years ago and created a website to expose me to new experiences and ideas: locserendipity.com

Right now I am reading a book I discovered through the site, The Evolution of Prime Intellect (using the Wikipedia randomizer at https://www.locserendipity.com/WikiRand.html). I also find films this way (https://www.locserendipity.com/Film.html). It’s definitely an escape from algorithmic and social news feeds and the like.

I think the article is based on a fallacy: it tries to prove the stuff in quadrant 4 should be done because ... they are actually important; that puts them in quadrant 2; in that case, the original matrix is good.

Isn’t it more like, they could be important.

Which is massively different to knowing something is important.

>Pursue not important, not urgent tasks?

Quite a useless advice. There are just too many of them, almost all of them are leading nowhere. So which one I should pick ?

The one that's the most fun to you of course.

That sounds to me like a license to indulge

Well yes indulge! Enjoy moments of freedom, spontaneity, irresponsibility and fun for fun’s sake.

Does anyone think they are most productive and efficient without some unstructured life?

It isn’t about not doing the other three quadrants.

Appreciated the article. Elevating the status of Quadrant IV activity probably makes sense.

Now for the ‘but...’ which shouldn’t detract from the rest of the article:

‘As the famous phrase goes, “The peerless samurai walks the path of hardship, the light-hearted fool walks the path of providence.” ‘

I can neither find a reference to this quote online nor do I understand how it fits the article’s broader message.

It is not clear to me why serendipity is more likely in quadrant IV than any other quadrant. I feel as if I am not understanding the definitions.

The matrix is also confusing, why is cooking lunch not urgent once it passes it passes. It should be in the urgent but not important quadrant (unless hunger is getting in the way of being productive, then it is urgent and important).

Because it is not necessary to cook as a way of satisfying hunger. You could go to an eatery, or order food (which is probably the most time efficient).

So the decision to cook might be informed by other factors apart from a strictly utilitarian one.

Why should the non-important activities be done at all?

If I delegate something urgent and non-important to another, doesn’t that:

1. Urgently interrupt someone else?

2. Set them up to urgently ask me questions about something unimportant.

3. Burn some of their trust in me when they complete it and I’m not grateful.

—————

It seems the bottom two should be:

Urgent & Not Important: Drop

Non Urgent & Not Important: Maybe Play

Reply on news.ycombinator.com