Everything interesting begins in the “unimportant and not urgent” quadrant. Eliminating it is the dumbest thing you can do and the worst advice Covey gave.
And no you can’t hack it via NPV of future importance as “small seeds.” If you predict even uncertain and ambiguous future importance, it fuzzily belongs in important quadrants.
If it is seeds, it is of the magic beans variety in jack and the beanstalk. You’re not betting on rational expectations of future returns but making things interestingly weird in ways that might subvert your notions of value (importance) altogether. Static importance is religion.