Purely Prudent Quadrant Planning

bycaylynn

1.8K followers

Updated 11 years ago

I read a blog today - When Life Gets in the Way of LIfe - and felt the desperation and despair. I am in empathy with many who seem overwhelmed and pressured with time management. Managing time is essential to productivity which is essential to progress which requires purely prudent planning.

I hope this post helps you in managing time by planning and scheduling available time in your daily life. What works for me may not work for you, but thinking in quadrants has been the most sensible way for me to conquer the WA daily tasks. Thousands of diverse people use daily quadrant planning.

Time is often critical and then there is time you must manage effectively. There is a live performance available in Google Shopping but to save you the time, trouble and money am hoping these screenshots will give you an evolution into "Stephen R. Covey's, The 4 Disciplines of Execution: The Secret To Getting Things Done, On Time, With Excellence" derived from the original image Covey named "The Urgent/Important Matrix" from his 1994 business classic, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People."

Since 50% of us favor black on white or white/black on blue, I will provide both images to satisfy right brain or left brain dominance. Each are helpful in strategic-prudent-quadrant-planning.

From the original business classic quadrant, I created my own quadrant planner incorporated in a powerpoint on demand (p.o.d.) presentation with Smart Goals and 8 1/2 x 11 handouts for my students.

I have two types of handouts for my students to help me understand how they think - right brain or left brain dominant. Will attempt to transfer these to my Google Drive for those interested or they are easily attached in an email as an 8 1/2 x 11 pdf page. I guess you could call the pdf page or form a two column two row spreadsheet. This p.o.d. will be on my website among many other p.o.d. presentations as videos.

Now to the Prudent Quadrant Planning.

"The Urgent/Important Matrix" helps us think about priorities, to focus on urgent activities to clear enough time to focus on important activities - like the WA where you can grow your website business. This is a powerful way of separating important goals from life urgencies.

A new time quadrant form, is done for each day. A quadrant is four quarters of a square or space or for those medically inclined upper left and right quadrant and lower left and right quadrant.

I have arranged the quadrants on my student sheets as follows:

Quadrant 1 - upper left quadrant - important and urgent

Quadrant 2 - upper right quadrant - important but not urgent

Quadrant 3 - lower left quadrant - urgent but not important

Quadrant 4 - lower right quadrant - not urgent and not important.

There are several ways to utilize this powerful tool. One way is to put goals or your 'to-do' list into each quadrant by one hour or by one-half hour, as Q1 goals are met Q2, Q3 and Q4 move up in importance. As each goal is met, it is crossed off. As new goals are identified they are put on the next day quadrant form.

The other way is to identify what are:

1. Urgent and important activities. These are ones you could not foresee or ones you left to the last minute which can be planned ahead to avoid procrastination. A crisis is urgent and either minor or major crises cannot always be foreseen so reschedule important activities. If more than five activities land in this quadrant, then you need to think how you could schedule activities ahead of time so they don't become urgent.

2. Urgent and Not Important activities. These are interruptions from people (or people in your social networks) that stop or prevent you from achieving your goals. These tasks can be rescheduled or delegated. Encourage people to solve the problem themselves. Post a 'no interruption' sign or a clock face pointing to 'back in 30 minutes'. Now your important activities can be given a focused period of time.

3. Not Urgent, but Important activities. These help you achieve and complete your personal and professional goals. Give a realistic time (or prudent time) to do and complete important work. Remember to leave enough time for unforeseen problems to maximize your chances of keeping on schedule, avoid the stress of work so the more urgent doesn't become necessary.

4. Not Urgent and Not Important activities. These are purely distractions, totally avoided, ignored or cancelled. Learn to say "No" politely. When you are clear about your objectives and boundaries, people will learn not to ask you to do "not important" activities in the future during your prudent quadrant planning.

This planner has helped thousands of people because Dr. Covey has introduced the quadrant in various ways dependent upon his audience. Your calendar schedule can be used alongside the quadrant planner for advance appointments to schedule quadrant time before or after.

To add a historical perspective to this time quadrant is the quote - What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important - known as the Eisenhower Principle.

The Time Quadrant Matrix will be found used in numerous variations because former US President Eisenhower managed his day to day tasks in this way. The "Eisenhower Matrix" will help you organize your thoughts and priorities. Here is one of many -

A link I must add is to a helpful video presentation by Jay @magistudios which supercharged my prudent-quadrant-planning schedule in my life.

There are also priority matrix apps for Windows and Mac.

A special thank you goes to a special member who is trying so hard in her last month as premium member to schedule as much as she can. She inspired the writing of this blog in place of a comment that would have been sorely inadequate to address her despair.

Thank you to the WA community for your help, support and comments.

Because, 'That is What We Do'. ^_~