📖 Meaning
A principle for prioritizing tasks by distinguishing between what is important and what is trivial, as well as what demands immediate action and what can be postponed. It emphasizes handling matters in order of their relative significance and urgency.
📜 Origin Story
This idiom originates from Volume 7 of Gu Yanwu's 'Rizhilu' (Record of Daily Knowledge), a scholarly work from the early Qing Dynasty. Gu Yanwu (1613–1682) was a prominent thinker who reflected on the fall of the Ming Dynasty. In the cited passage, he discusses how ancient rulers, when faced with extreme adversity, had to weigh the urgency and gravity of various matters to make unavoidable decisions. The phrase '权于缓急轻重之间' (weighing between slow and urgent, light and heavy) captures the essence of strategic prioritization.
💡 Example Usage
工作中要分清轻重缓急，才能提高效率。
In work, you must distinguish the urgent from the important and the trivial from the critical in order to improve efficiency.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 轻重缓急
- Pinyin: qīng zhòng huǎn jí
- Literal Translation: light, heavy, slow, urgent
- Category: Method
- Characters: 4