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Every single one of us working people is constantly bombarded with all sorts of tasks and responsibilities. Being work related or personal, tasks just keep on coming.

Some of them require our immediate attention, others can be pushed back for later.

Having tendencies to procrastinate, we all love to postpone things as much as we possible can.

“I’ll do it later” mantra is what keeps us in our comfort zone, and we appreciate it for that.

It’s quite normal that we all like to postpone things, until we’re good and ready to deal with them.

Unfortunately, this is not always the best idea. Somethings you should do immediately, before they get buried by other responsibilities, and then become a total nightmare to handle.

To help you sort out your tasks, here’s a list of five things you should never put in “for later” folder:

1. Code: Red Tasks

“Code:red” tasks are the ones of high importance. Their completion is of great value for yourself and your company.

Important calls, client briefs, meetings, staff reorganization, managerial decisions, business strategy plans – these are just some of the tasks that are considered to be of the highest possible priority in most companies.

The way on how you handle these tasks could have serious effect on your work and your entire career. Be sure take your time with them, and treat as they need to be treated.

2. Quick Tasks

Why allow yourself to get slammed with all sorts of different thing when some of them you can do in a matter of seconds?

Like I wrote above, task never stop coming, and therefore they need constant clearing. You need to constantly make room for new ones.

Let’s think about it in this way. You have to call a client and tell him that everything went smoothly and that his order is being processed, as you speak.

The problem is, this particular client likes to talk, a lot. He likes to yammer about everything and anything, mostly nothing work related.

You hate that, but you know you got to talk to him. This is your responsibility.

So, normally like anyone who knows he’s going to get bored, you want to postpone this task. You want to push it for later, as far as possible.

Instead of biting the bullet and powering through these couple of hellish minutes, you spend your entire day thinking about what coming at the end of it, because it’s unavoidable.

Stupid, right?

My advice is to always firstly do the tasks that are easy to solve. You’ll waste more time and energy postponing them and then thinking about them, instead of doing them.

3. Safety Issues

Safety is the primary factor in any situation. Everyone should know this.

Never delay things that could end up causing harm to yourself, your work environment and your colleagues.

For example. Imagine that you have to change the batteries for your smoke detectors. You have to go out, get new ones, get a ladder, climb it, take the old ones out, put in the new ones, blah, blah…

This can task take a while to finish.

The thing with this is that you never know when something could or is going to happen. You never know when a certain circuit will go bananas. It could happen now, in two hours, in a week, or never. But still, it COULD happen.

Never let your laziness get in situations where you end up regretting your decision. Safety is not a thing anyone should gamble with, always have that in mind.

4. Special or Once in a Lifetime Opportunities

Every once in a while, a special opportunity comes our way. These are situations that are totally out of the ordinary, and they carry great promise with them.

Dream job offers, exclusive rights to something, a change to invest in a promising market, a tip or trick that you can learn from someone who’s famous for the outstanding work in his field – these are all changes that don’t come around that often.

Most of them are time-sensitive and they require your immediate reaction, or they’ll pass and disappear into oblivion.

Don’t let yourself become one of those “what if” and “only if I did this” people. Take matters into your own hands.

I hope that this list helped you see the importance in immediately reaction to certain issues.

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