This article has taken a while to get started because I’m coming at it from two angles.

Angle 1

The first is laying out the rationale behind the introduction of a new feature on the site called “Big Ideas.” The logic behind it is simple: blogs typically display content chronologically. Under this system, if the quality of your content varies from article to article, good/innovative/original material can tend to get lost in the stream of entries of lesser weight. Simple enough logic, yes? So then enter the “Big Ideas” section, a place on the site where more permanent, weightier, themes are held aside from the river of lesser material  such as the observations of an irritable man. And you’re done. But then I took it here: well, why don’t you just write good stuff and good stuff only and forget about the irritable guy thing; that way the gold doesn’t have to be separated from the garbage – it should all just be gold. Well, I could try. Can’t make promises, but surely I have the strength to suppress my petty annoyances and complaints, such as people who don’t understand personal space, (for example, like the girl who had her shoe resting on mine today on the bus), or the guy who snaps his newspaper too loudly like he’s some sort of big shot because he can read a newspaper. I don’t need to write about these things. Yeah, I like to. I enjoy it. But I don’t need to.

Angle 2

So then I thought about why those pieces are even being written. This became the second angle of approach, the analysis of why I am even having to deal with this issue in the first place.  So, I put on my hat of objectivity and proceed. And it comes down to the compulsion to get stuff off the chest. It is an urge. It nags you. It pesters you. So you eventually give in to it. Sure, you could rise above to write bigger, more consequential or more interesting content, but instead you get lured into staying in the filthy dark alleys of petty-land. Why. Then I thought of the parallel between this phenomenon and Covey’s urgent/important framework for prioritizing items. Allow me to roll out my case.  If you’re easily annoyed, then those irritating yet insignificant things loom disproportionately large in your consciousness only because they bug the hell out of you. You feel them in a very present and immediate way. They are not important; but they feel urgent. So you fall into the trap of dealing with them first, in this case by hacking out your gripes on your blog. Sure doing so feels good as a short term release and sure perhaps the outcome may occasionally be entertaining to read, but really, there are heavier things going on more deserving of bandwidth. Engaging at that low level comes at the cost of advancing the broad view. Bad blogger.

So what

Well, how about turning this bitch around? How. What does Covey say? He says, First Things First. You deal with the important non-urgent things first. The big picture, the long term, purpose, values, quality. We must move beyond urgency addiction. We must rise above the petty urgent need to publish to the world, or that very small percentage of the world who is willing to read the blog, trifling complaints such as how some people eat with half the food sticking out of their mouth.