What's Your Quadrant?

Stephen Covey wrote one of the best time management and efficiency books of all time: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Even though Covey is long gone, his management principles have been proven by the test of time. I go back and reread parts of this book and have given it to my children to learn from.

It is so popular because it is a principle-centered approach for solving both personal and professional problems.

Quadrants of Activity

Sometimes the simplest concepts are the most profound.

There is a time-management matrix representing all manner of activities:

1. urgent and importantg.
2. non-urgent but important
3. urgent but not important
4. non-urgent and not important

Quadrant 1

The first quadrant is where we are running around putting out fires. This is when the boss calls wondering where that report is, to your frantic son interrupts you to help with his calculus test tomorrow, or you have a report due tomorrow that you have put ott.

This is what we might call "crises". These come and knock you down, wipe you out, make you struggle.

Try not to work from Quadrant 1.

Quadrant 2

This is where you want to be!

This is where to spend most of your time - this is productivity-land. This is working at WA to build your life, this is taking that correspondence course to get extra skills, this is studying for the sleep boards coming up next year.

Spending most of your time in this quadrant will make you a better, more efficient, disciplined worker.

Quadrant 3

This is the annoying stuff that is urgent but not important. This is the employee knocking on your door demanding your attention about something trivial, the email that has to be answered now even though it is not important, most meetings fall into this category.

Meetings can be a major waste of time - good time managers try to minimize them. There are usually much more efficient ways to communicate today without making everybody sit and be involved in a meeting. (I hate meetings!).

Quadrant 4

These are the not important and not urgent things in life; these basically are the time-wasters, trivia, busy work, stuff that is not important but maybe fun to do. Most mail falls into this category, sometimes you have to open it and then find it is worthless. Meetings can be in this quadrant too (back to meetings!).

Moving into Quadrant 2

Why was this concept so revolutionary? It seems like common sense but really it isn't.

The first generation of time management is what you see in Staples - plenty of to-do lists with stuff you can cross of. But no p[priority is attached to these to-do list items.

First Generation Managers. Additionally, there is no correlation between the to-do items and our ultimate values and purposes in life. We are just reacting to stuff, and often putting the hardest stuff off until it becomes a Quadrant 1 activity - urgent and important.

This means that first-generation managers are not very effective people. They are not as a rule doing stuff to make themselves better and more organized. They are responding to outside forces and not making outside forces work for them.

Second Generation Managers - These managers assume more control and are better managers than the first generation type; They will try to be in Quadrant 2 and not letting things get out of hand and develop into an emergency. But they do not have values aligned management system.

These are managers that are good managers and will get stuff done, but it is just that - stuff. There is no overarching plan to get to a values-oriented goal.

Third Generation Managers - This is where the time management field is today - we try to be in Quadrant 2 by mostly doing important stuff that is no urgent. We try to spend as little time as possible on other activities - and as much as possible delegate less important stuff to other people.

Summary

That was more than I intended to write when I sat down! Phew!!!

Most of my writing is about the latest thoughts about how to be efficient, how to be goal-oriented, how to not just putting out fires, and how to have your goals align with your deepest values and your mission statement.

You do have a mission statement, right?

Most about that later.

Dave.