Is your time management as awful as mine !

‘Apologies for this uber late reply! It’s been a busy week … I’ll write a proper msg ASAP I promise’   

After more than a week, this is all what I wrote to my colleague who is patiently waiting for some info ! Sounds familiar! Read along :) 

I ,like most of you, would love to be an over-achiever! Someone says, “achieve,” and we jump right to it. We live in a time that cheers multi-tasking (I bet you are reading this blog whilst listening to and /watching something else at once!). I cram lists of things I want to do. Then each project becomes a collection of to-do items. Not long afterwards, I’ll cram more to-do items than there are explosions in Baghdad —and Baghdad has a lot of explosions trust me on this one.

Fortunately, your/my to-do list is far more manageable than Iraqi politics. Here is what  Steven Covey said on prioritising your tasks. He is the author of  7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Urgency and Importance Are Different

Stephen Covey noticed that we decide a to-do is high priority in two different ways. The first is where delay is not an option aka its urgent. Other to-dos become high priority because they’re important. I cant think of examples right now but you got the idea.

Prioritize Using an Urgent/Important Grid

Make your life easier with a 2x2 grid. When setting priorities, decide which quadrant your activity belongs in. Then use the quadrant to prioritize the activity.

	Urgent	Not Urgent
Important	I	II
Not Important	III	IV

Quadrant I: OMG!

Quadrant I contains the urgent and important. It’s the quadrant of Omigosh-hand-me-the-fire-extinguisher. This stuff needs doing, and it needs doing now. Your top priority will be quadrant I activities.

Quadrant II: Awesome  

Quadrant II contains the important-but-not-urgent. It’s the quadrant of Becoming Awesome. Most of the things we need to do to become awesome are important, but not urgent. Typical activities that belong in quadrant II would include doing long-term planning, taking classes, spending time with family. we need to aim to make most of our tasks lie in this quadrant .

Quadrant III: Social Media

Quadrant III is the quadrant of temptation. These are things that aren’t important, but they sure are urgent.  Doing things that are urgent-but-not-important gives us an adrenaline shot, makes us feel productive, but is actually a waste of time.

Quadrant IV: Time Wasters

The final quadrant is the you-know-better quadrant. This is stuff that’s neither urgent nor important.

Look over your to-do list today. Note the quadrant each item falls into. Make your top priorities your quadrant I activities, and do your best to toss in a quadrant II activity. Say goodbye to anything in quadrants III or IV.

You owe it to yourself to spend your time doing the things that matter!