One of the things the pandemic allowed to observe was the decision process in uncertain times. In some ways, it is possible to compare the situation in which Eisenhower used his decision principles to the ones we are having now.

Different countries had different criteria for what was urgent and what was important. Nevertheless, all countries had to decide on the criteria making a decision urgent or important.

Times of crisis have this ability to make urgent and important visible. In the short term.

They rarely allow for a long term view of what is important. We’ve seen how the pandemic shifted priority onto health and keeping the health system functioning as well as possible.

The circumstances define how to assess urgent and important.

It took time for other issues like climate change or justice to reappear and be able to recapture attention. An attention that is again split between different subjects.

What receives our attention now is again based on our interests, values, and opportunities.

Using the urgent and important criteria in everyday life requires a different approach than in crisis time. It asks us to position ourselves and know what we’ll make important and urgent in life.

In contrast to crisis times, which create a container with the things to address and the things to leave aside, peace times invite us to see life as a whole. Whatever container we might have, like work, life, relationships, they need to be combined.

Defining urgent and important in such a situation means to describe the “and” relationship between the different containers, making them one. Crisis times allow to use an “or”-relationship, that is to select only one container to be addressed.