It wasn't long ago I sat with a colleague discussing his business priorities and the overflowing mound of tasks that seemed to pour from his desk and into the hallway. I was startled to see him struggle the way he did; for a more gifted human being I have never met. His raw talent and capacity were almost unmatched. Yet, despite his gifts he sat at the end of my table nearly vanquished. Exhausted and drenched in the sweat of stress, he carried an almost debilitating sense of being overwhelmed. I was concerned about his wellbeing.

As I listened to him discuss his workload, I couldn't help but think how this same person spent his time at work. Oh, he was busy alright. In fact, he was as busy as anyone I have ever known. Add to that, he had a remarkable (almost intoxicating) way of rationalizing his methods and workload. If I wasn't watchful, I would find myself buying into the stories he was so artfully telling himself.

But alas, like a college student cramming for a test, he often found himself crushed under the tremendous pressures of procrastination. Then, when he had no choice, he found himself working all-nighters to catch up and would invariably get sick from the strain prolonged lack of sleep had on his body. That created the illusion of being overworked.

Yes, he worked hard. The trouble was, he wasn't very productive. I was often startled at times to see an email cross my desk that was thoughtful and thorough, but poorly timed. I wondered why he was spending so much energy on a thing that wasn't important at the moment. Instead of preparing for important deadlines, he was often discovered scurrying about the valley in his car on one errand or another, hyper-focused on building intricate reports or lengthy emails, or simply trying to solve problems that weren't problems at all. The most important things were constantly being pushed off for lesser things. What I saw was the epitome of a person drowning in the thick of thin things.

I left the meeting unsettled by the almost panicked tone of his words. I wondered what advice I might give him as he began to triage the workload in front of him. Driving home that night I had a moment of clarity and said to myself: “You’re not overworked, you’re under-prioritized.”

I was grateful for this exchange and that moment of clarity – not just for my colleague, but for myself. I began to examine my own life and looked for ways I might have been telling myself a story. The root cause of my colleague’s troubles stemmed from priority confusion. When we lack clarity about our priorities, the things that are most important, we lose sight of what we should be doing and why.

Any more, in a world saturated with endless distractions and things to do, I am convinced we don’t need longer days. We need smarter hours.