 |
| This year, I got yet another Samsung gadget |
 |
| the following 8 weeks I was too lazy/too busy to go downtown to get a mini SIM card for it :O |
 |
| I have finally gathered the energy to go get one |
 |
| that's the first time I go paper free Planner wise ..already excited |
We all like to be over-achievers! Someone says, “achieve,” and we jump right to it. We even achieve
multiple things at once
(I’ll bet you’re listening to this while driving or working out—am I
awesomely psychic, or what?). We make lists of projects we have to do.
Then each project becomes a collection of to-do items. We add those to
our
to-do list. Pretty soon, we have more to-do items than Imelda Marcos has shoes—and Imelda has a lot of shoes.
It’s not easy being her. Imagine being invited to a function. She has a choice of 3,487 pairs of shoes she
might
wear. How does she decide? Does she organize by color? By how much toe
is visible? By number of sequins? My pal Bernice would approve. Or by
topological shape? Her boyfriend Melvin would love that. Or how many
countries she visited in a given pair? Jet-setting Europa would go wild.
It’s too hard a problem. Some theoretical mathematicians speculate
solving it will take longer than the lifetime of the universe (just ask
Math Dude).
Fortunately, your to-do list is a lot more manageable than Imelda’s
closet. Today’s episode is a tribute to the late Steven Covey. He was
the author of
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
and he recently passed away at the age of much-older-than-me. I don’t
know if he invented it, but he certainly popularized one way to think
about choosing tasks to do. Here are some tips based upon his wisdom:
Urgency and Importance Are Different
Stephen Covey noticed that we decide a to-do is high priority in two
different ways. The first is urgency. Something is urgent if it has to
be done
now for some reason. The dog is running in circles, crossing its legs,
making whimpering noises that mean “Take me for a walk or grandma’s antique carpet is goin’ down.” Delay is not an option.
Other to-dos become high priority because they’re important. Sending
in your mortgage payment, for example, needs to be done or the bank will
repossess your house. Sending in that payment is high priority. (Of
course, some banks
repossess your house even if you don’t have a mortgage! Banking is FUN!)
Prioritize Using an Urgent/Important Grid
Make your life easier with a 2x2 grid. Label the rows
Important and
Not Important. Label the vertical columns
Urgent and
Not Urgent.
Finally, label the upper left quadrant 1, the upper right quadrant 2,
the lower left quadrant 3, and the lower right quadrant 4. Each quadrant
is a different combination of urgent and important.
|
Urgent |
Not Urgent |
| Important |
I |
II |
| Not Important |
III |
IV |
When setting priorities, decide which quadrant your activity belongs in. Then use the quadrant to prioritize the activity.
Quadrant I: Omigosh!
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. When your
wife/girlfriend/surrogate baby mama/polyamorous family partner says “The
contractions are two minutes apart,” it’s time to shut down
World of Warcraft and head to the hospital. And no, you don’t have time to finish your current campaign first.
Quadrant II: Awesomeness
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 your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, spousal
equivalent, or polyamorous family unit.
Quadrant II is where most personal development activities happen:
understanding your deepest values so you can orient your life around
them, giving yourself true rest and relaxation so you are in top form,
and recaulking the bathtub so the grout doesn’t grow legs and attack you
in your sleep.
These are your next priority items, right after quadrant I.
Sometimes, these can be even higher priority. If you live your life in
quadrant I, always embroiled in urgent emergencies, you
must
visit quadrant II to create the infrastructure that will handle
emergencies before they become urgent. Quadrant II is where you get the
highest leverage and biggest boost to your life. It’s where you do
prevention, redesign systems, and listen to the
Get-it-Done Guy podcast (obviously).
Quadrant II also includes non-work stuff like building friendships,
deepening ties with your family, and pursuing spirituality, meaning, and
legacy. Those are rarely urgent, but they’re the most important parts
of life. Do them now! Don’t wait until they become urgent.
Quadrant III: Social Media
Quadrant III is the quadrant of temptation. These are things that
aren’t important, but they sure are urgent. When Bernice gets a bucket
of chocolate-covered ice cream bars, I suddenly find myself in a state
of near panic. “What if they melt while they’re sitting in the lunch
room? I’m pretty sure the freezer isn’t working right. We have to eat
these before they melt. It’s absolutely
vital!”
Not-quite-emergencies often fall into quadrant III. Like social media. “Someone on
Twitter just said our product sucks!!! We have to respond to this before it blows up!” Well isn’t
that just a kick in the rubber parts?
It’s urgent! After all, in the 21st century, it’s all about being in
conversation with our customers. But is it really important? Say you
have 10 million customers and only 20,000 Twitter followers. Of the
20,000, 3 are watching their Twitter feed at the moment, because all the
rest are too busy playing
World of Warcraft. Doing things that are urgent-but-not-important gives us an adrenaline shot, makes us
feel
productive, but is actually a waste of time. Make sure your social
media is genuinely important to your business by measuring it.
Otherwise, social media belongs in quadrant III unless proven otherwise.
Quadrant IV: Time Wasters
The final quadrant is the your-mom-would-know-better quadrant. This is stuff that’s neither urgent
nor important. Remember
World of Warcraft? Yeah, it’s quadrant IV. Along with
Real Housewives, American Idol, and the
Twilight movies. Actually, the
Twilight movies might even be quadrant V, which is even worse.
Quadrant IV activities should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Some
meetings can be quadrant IV. A lot of
email is quadrant IV. Posting pictures of kittens on
Facebook
is neither urgent nor important. And neither is getting stoned and
inadvertently eating a wall-hanging after mistaking it for licorice.
Next time you feel tempted to do something in quadrant IV, do something
useful instead, like recommending the short and useful
Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts to all your friends. You’ll strengthen your friendships and do good for the world, all at once.
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 or two. Say goodbye to anything
in quadrants III or IV. You owe it to yourself to spend your time doing
the things that matter!
I’m Stever Robbins. I help people orient their jobs and lives around
what’s most important, not simply what’s urgent. If you want to know
more, visit
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
- See more at:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/productivity/organization/how-prioritize-your-life?page=all#sthash.Am0msHHo.dpuf
Is it going to be the answer for me to work less , do more and have a great life ! I'll keep you posted :) stay tuned
We all like to be over-achievers! Someone says, “achieve,” and we jump right to it. We even achieve
multiple things at once
(I’ll bet you’re listening to this while driving or working out—am I
awesomely psychic, or what?). We make lists of projects we have to do.
Then each project becomes a collection of to-do items. We add those to
our
to-do list. Pretty soon, we have more to-do items than Imelda Marcos has shoes—and Imelda has a lot of shoes.
It’s not easy being her. Imagine being invited to a function. She has a choice of 3,487 pairs of shoes she
might
wear. How does she decide? Does she organize by color? By how much toe
is visible? By number of sequins? My pal Bernice would approve. Or by
topological shape? Her boyfriend Melvin would love that. Or how many
countries she visited in a given pair? Jet-setting Europa would go wild.
It’s too hard a problem. Some theoretical mathematicians speculate
solving it will take longer than the lifetime of the universe (just ask
Math Dude).
Fortunately, your to-do list is a lot more manageable than Imelda’s
closet. Today’s episode is a tribute to the late Steven Covey. He was
the author of
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
and he recently passed away at the age of much-older-than-me. I don’t
know if he invented it, but he certainly popularized one way to think
about choosing tasks to do. Here are some tips based upon his wisdom:
Urgency and Importance Are Different
Stephen Covey noticed that we decide a to-do is high priority in two
different ways. The first is urgency. Something is urgent if it has to
be done
now for some reason. The dog is running in circles, crossing its legs,
making whimpering noises that mean “Take me for a walk or grandma’s antique carpet is goin’ down.” Delay is not an option.
Other to-dos become high priority because they’re important. Sending
in your mortgage payment, for example, needs to be done or the bank will
repossess your house. Sending in that payment is high priority. (Of
course, some banks
repossess your house even if you don’t have a mortgage! Banking is FUN!)
Prioritize Using an Urgent/Important Grid
Make your life easier with a 2x2 grid. Label the rows
Important and
Not Important. Label the vertical columns
Urgent and
Not Urgent.
Finally, label the upper left quadrant 1, the upper right quadrant 2,
the lower left quadrant 3, and the lower right quadrant 4. Each quadrant
is a different combination of urgent and important.
|
Urgent |
Not Urgent |
| Important |
I |
II |
| Not Important |
III |
IV |
When setting priorities, decide which quadrant your activity belongs in. Then use the quadrant to prioritize the activity.
Quadrant I: Omigosh!
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. When your
wife/girlfriend/surrogate baby mama/polyamorous family partner says “The
contractions are two minutes apart,” it’s time to shut down
World of Warcraft and head to the hospital. And no, you don’t have time to finish your current campaign first.
Quadrant II: Awesomeness
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 your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, spousal
equivalent, or polyamorous family unit.
Quadrant II is where most personal development activities happen:
understanding your deepest values so you can orient your life around
them, giving yourself true rest and relaxation so you are in top form,
and recaulking the bathtub so the grout doesn’t grow legs and attack you
in your sleep.
These are your next priority items, right after quadrant I.
Sometimes, these can be even higher priority. If you live your life in
quadrant I, always embroiled in urgent emergencies, you
must
visit quadrant II to create the infrastructure that will handle
emergencies before they become urgent. Quadrant II is where you get the
highest leverage and biggest boost to your life. It’s where you do
prevention, redesign systems, and listen to the
Get-it-Done Guy podcast (obviously).
Quadrant II also includes non-work stuff like building friendships,
deepening ties with your family, and pursuing spirituality, meaning, and
legacy. Those are rarely urgent, but they’re the most important parts
of life. Do them now! Don’t wait until they become urgent.
Quadrant III: Social Media
Quadrant III is the quadrant of temptation. These are things that
aren’t important, but they sure are urgent. When Bernice gets a bucket
of chocolate-covered ice cream bars, I suddenly find myself in a state
of near panic. “What if they melt while they’re sitting in the lunch
room? I’m pretty sure the freezer isn’t working right. We have to eat
these before they melt. It’s absolutely
vital!”
Not-quite-emergencies often fall into quadrant III. Like social media. “Someone on
Twitter just said our product sucks!!! We have to respond to this before it blows up!” Well isn’t
that just a kick in the rubber parts?
It’s urgent! After all, in the 21st century, it’s all about being in
conversation with our customers. But is it really important? Say you
have 10 million customers and only 20,000 Twitter followers. Of the
20,000, 3 are watching their Twitter feed at the moment, because all the
rest are too busy playing
World of Warcraft. Doing things that are urgent-but-not-important gives us an adrenaline shot, makes us
feel
productive, but is actually a waste of time. Make sure your social
media is genuinely important to your business by measuring it.
Otherwise, social media belongs in quadrant III unless proven otherwise.
Quadrant IV: Time Wasters
The final quadrant is the your-mom-would-know-better quadrant. This is stuff that’s neither urgent
nor important. Remember
World of Warcraft? Yeah, it’s quadrant IV. Along with
Real Housewives, American Idol, and the
Twilight movies. Actually, the
Twilight movies might even be quadrant V, which is even worse.
Quadrant IV activities should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Some
meetings can be quadrant IV. A lot of
email is quadrant IV. Posting pictures of kittens on
Facebook
is neither urgent nor important. And neither is getting stoned and
inadvertently eating a wall-hanging after mistaking it for licorice.
Next time you feel tempted to do something in quadrant IV, do something
useful instead, like recommending the short and useful
Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts to all your friends. You’ll strengthen your friendships and do good for the world, all at once.
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 or two. Say goodbye to anything
in quadrants III or IV. You owe it to yourself to spend your time doing
the things that matter!
I’m Stever Robbins. I help people orient their jobs and lives around
what’s most important, not simply what’s urgent. If you want to know
more, visit
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
- See more at:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/productivity/organization/how-prioritize-your-life?page=all#sthash.Am0msHHo.dpuf
We all like to be over-achievers! Someone says, “achieve,” and we jump right to it. We even achieve
multiple things at once
(I’ll bet you’re listening to this while driving or working out—am I
awesomely psychic, or what?). We make lists of projects we have to do.
Then each project becomes a collection of to-do items. We add those to
our
to-do list. Pretty soon, we have more to-do items than Imelda Marcos has shoes—and Imelda has a lot of shoes.
It’s not easy being her. Imagine being invited to a function. She has a choice of 3,487 pairs of shoes she
might
wear. How does she decide? Does she organize by color? By how much toe
is visible? By number of sequins? My pal Bernice would approve. Or by
topological shape? Her boyfriend Melvin would love that. Or how many
countries she visited in a given pair? Jet-setting Europa would go wild.
It’s too hard a problem. Some theoretical mathematicians speculate
solving it will take longer than the lifetime of the universe (just ask
Math Dude).
Fortunately, your to-do list is a lot more manageable than Imelda’s
closet. Today’s episode is a tribute to the late Steven Covey. He was
the author of
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
and he recently passed away at the age of much-older-than-me. I don’t
know if he invented it, but he certainly popularized one way to think
about choosing tasks to do. Here are some tips based upon his wisdom:
Urgency and Importance Are Different
Stephen Covey noticed that we decide a to-do is high priority in two
different ways. The first is urgency. Something is urgent if it has to
be done
now for some reason. The dog is running in circles, crossing its legs,
making whimpering noises that mean “Take me for a walk or grandma’s antique carpet is goin’ down.” Delay is not an option.
Other to-dos become high priority because they’re important. Sending
in your mortgage payment, for example, needs to be done or the bank will
repossess your house. Sending in that payment is high priority. (Of
course, some banks
repossess your house even if you don’t have a mortgage! Banking is FUN!)
Prioritize Using an Urgent/Important Grid
Make your life easier with a 2x2 grid. Label the rows
Important and
Not Important. Label the vertical columns
Urgent and
Not Urgent.
Finally, label the upper left quadrant 1, the upper right quadrant 2,
the lower left quadrant 3, and the lower right quadrant 4. Each quadrant
is a different combination of urgent and important.
|
Urgent |
Not Urgent |
| Important |
I |
II |
| Not Important |
III |
IV |
When setting priorities, decide which quadrant your activity belongs in. Then use the quadrant to prioritize the activity.
Quadrant I: Omigosh!
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. When your
wife/girlfriend/surrogate baby mama/polyamorous family partner says “The
contractions are two minutes apart,” it’s time to shut down
World of Warcraft and head to the hospital. And no, you don’t have time to finish your current campaign first.
Quadrant II: Awesomeness
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 your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, spousal
equivalent, or polyamorous family unit.
Quadrant II is where most personal development activities happen:
understanding your deepest values so you can orient your life around
them, giving yourself true rest and relaxation so you are in top form,
and recaulking the bathtub so the grout doesn’t grow legs and attack you
in your sleep.
These are your next priority items, right after quadrant I.
Sometimes, these can be even higher priority. If you live your life in
quadrant I, always embroiled in urgent emergencies, you
must
visit quadrant II to create the infrastructure that will handle
emergencies before they become urgent. Quadrant II is where you get the
highest leverage and biggest boost to your life. It’s where you do
prevention, redesign systems, and listen to the
Get-it-Done Guy podcast (obviously).
Quadrant II also includes non-work stuff like building friendships,
deepening ties with your family, and pursuing spirituality, meaning, and
legacy. Those are rarely urgent, but they’re the most important parts
of life. Do them now! Don’t wait until they become urgent.
Quadrant III: Social Media
Quadrant III is the quadrant of temptation. These are things that
aren’t important, but they sure are urgent. When Bernice gets a bucket
of chocolate-covered ice cream bars, I suddenly find myself in a state
of near panic. “What if they melt while they’re sitting in the lunch
room? I’m pretty sure the freezer isn’t working right. We have to eat
these before they melt. It’s absolutely
vital!”
Not-quite-emergencies often fall into quadrant III. Like social media. “Someone on
Twitter just said our product sucks!!! We have to respond to this before it blows up!” Well isn’t
that just a kick in the rubber parts?
It’s urgent! After all, in the 21st century, it’s all about being in
conversation with our customers. But is it really important? Say you
have 10 million customers and only 20,000 Twitter followers. Of the
20,000, 3 are watching their Twitter feed at the moment, because all the
rest are too busy playing
World of Warcraft. Doing things that are urgent-but-not-important gives us an adrenaline shot, makes us
feel
productive, but is actually a waste of time. Make sure your social
media is genuinely important to your business by measuring it.
Otherwise, social media belongs in quadrant III unless proven otherwise.
Quadrant IV: Time Wasters
The final quadrant is the your-mom-would-know-better quadrant. This is stuff that’s neither urgent
nor important. Remember
World of Warcraft? Yeah, it’s quadrant IV. Along with
Real Housewives, American Idol, and the
Twilight movies. Actually, the
Twilight movies might even be quadrant V, which is even worse.
Quadrant IV activities should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Some
meetings can be quadrant IV. A lot of
email is quadrant IV. Posting pictures of kittens on
Facebook
is neither urgent nor important. And neither is getting stoned and
inadvertently eating a wall-hanging after mistaking it for licorice.
Next time you feel tempted to do something in quadrant IV, do something
useful instead, like recommending the short and useful
Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts to all your friends. You’ll strengthen your friendships and do good for the world, all at once.
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 or two. Say goodbye to anything
in quadrants III or IV. You owe it to yourself to spend your time doing
the things that matter!
I’m Stever Robbins. I help people orient their jobs and lives around
what’s most important, not simply what’s urgent. If you want to know
more, visit
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
- See more at:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/productivity/organization/how-prioritize-your-life?page=all#sthash.Am0msHHo.dpuf
We all like to be over-achievers! Someone says, “achieve,” and we jump right to it. We even achieve
multiple things at once
(I’ll bet you’re listening to this while driving or working out—am I
awesomely psychic, or what?). We make lists of projects we have to do.
Then each project becomes a collection of to-do items. We add those to
our
to-do list. Pretty soon, we have more to-do items than Imelda Marcos has shoes—and Imelda has a lot of shoes.
It’s not easy being her. Imagine being invited to a function. She has a choice of 3,487 pairs of shoes she
might
wear. How does she decide? Does she organize by color? By how much toe
is visible? By number of sequins? My pal Bernice would approve. Or by
topological shape? Her boyfriend Melvin would love that. Or how many
countries she visited in a given pair? Jet-setting Europa would go wild.
It’s too hard a problem. Some theoretical mathematicians speculate
solving it will take longer than the lifetime of the universe (just ask
Math Dude).
Fortunately, your to-do list is a lot more manageable than Imelda’s
closet. Today’s episode is a tribute to the late Steven Covey. He was
the author of
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
and he recently passed away at the age of much-older-than-me. I don’t
know if he invented it, but he certainly popularized one way to think
about choosing tasks to do. Here are some tips based upon his wisdom:
Urgency and Importance Are Different
Stephen Covey noticed that we decide a to-do is high priority in two
different ways. The first is urgency. Something is urgent if it has to
be done
now for some reason. The dog is running in circles, crossing its legs,
making whimpering noises that mean “Take me for a walk or grandma’s antique carpet is goin’ down.” Delay is not an option.
Other to-dos become high priority because they’re important. Sending
in your mortgage payment, for example, needs to be done or the bank will
repossess your house. Sending in that payment is high priority. (Of
course, some banks
repossess your house even if you don’t have a mortgage! Banking is FUN!)
Prioritize Using an Urgent/Important Grid
Make your life easier with a 2x2 grid. Label the rows
Important and
Not Important. Label the vertical columns
Urgent and
Not Urgent.
Finally, label the upper left quadrant 1, the upper right quadrant 2,
the lower left quadrant 3, and the lower right quadrant 4. Each quadrant
is a different combination of urgent and important.
|
Urgent |
Not Urgent |
| Important |
I |
II |
| Not Important |
III |
IV |
When setting priorities, decide which quadrant your activity belongs in. Then use the quadrant to prioritize the activity.
Quadrant I: Omigosh!
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. When your
wife/girlfriend/surrogate baby mama/polyamorous family partner says “The
contractions are two minutes apart,” it’s time to shut down
World of Warcraft and head to the hospital. And no, you don’t have time to finish your current campaign first.
Quadrant II: Awesomeness
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 your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, spousal
equivalent, or polyamorous family unit.
Quadrant II is where most personal development activities happen:
understanding your deepest values so you can orient your life around
them, giving yourself true rest and relaxation so you are in top form,
and recaulking the bathtub so the grout doesn’t grow legs and attack you
in your sleep.
These are your next priority items, right after quadrant I.
Sometimes, these can be even higher priority. If you live your life in
quadrant I, always embroiled in urgent emergencies, you
must
visit quadrant II to create the infrastructure that will handle
emergencies before they become urgent. Quadrant II is where you get the
highest leverage and biggest boost to your life. It’s where you do
prevention, redesign systems, and listen to the
Get-it-Done Guy podcast (obviously).
Quadrant II also includes non-work stuff like building friendships,
deepening ties with your family, and pursuing spirituality, meaning, and
legacy. Those are rarely urgent, but they’re the most important parts
of life. Do them now! Don’t wait until they become urgent.
Quadrant III: Social Media
Quadrant III is the quadrant of temptation. These are things that
aren’t important, but they sure are urgent. When Bernice gets a bucket
of chocolate-covered ice cream bars, I suddenly find myself in a state
of near panic. “What if they melt while they’re sitting in the lunch
room? I’m pretty sure the freezer isn’t working right. We have to eat
these before they melt. It’s absolutely
vital!”
Not-quite-emergencies often fall into quadrant III. Like social media. “Someone on
Twitter just said our product sucks!!! We have to respond to this before it blows up!” Well isn’t
that just a kick in the rubber parts?
It’s urgent! After all, in the 21st century, it’s all about being in
conversation with our customers. But is it really important? Say you
have 10 million customers and only 20,000 Twitter followers. Of the
20,000, 3 are watching their Twitter feed at the moment, because all the
rest are too busy playing
World of Warcraft. Doing things that are urgent-but-not-important gives us an adrenaline shot, makes us
feel
productive, but is actually a waste of time. Make sure your social
media is genuinely important to your business by measuring it.
Otherwise, social media belongs in quadrant III unless proven otherwise.
Quadrant IV: Time Wasters
The final quadrant is the your-mom-would-know-better quadrant. This is stuff that’s neither urgent
nor important. Remember
World of Warcraft? Yeah, it’s quadrant IV. Along with
Real Housewives, American Idol, and the
Twilight movies. Actually, the
Twilight movies might even be quadrant V, which is even worse.
Quadrant IV activities should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Some
meetings can be quadrant IV. A lot of
email is quadrant IV. Posting pictures of kittens on
Facebook
is neither urgent nor important. And neither is getting stoned and
inadvertently eating a wall-hanging after mistaking it for licorice.
Next time you feel tempted to do something in quadrant IV, do something
useful instead, like recommending the short and useful
Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts to all your friends. You’ll strengthen your friendships and do good for the world, all at once.
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 or two. Say goodbye to anything
in quadrants III or IV. You owe it to yourself to spend your time doing
the things that matter!
I’m Stever Robbins. I help people orient their jobs and lives around
what’s most important, not simply what’s urgent. If you want to know
more, visit
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
- See more at:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/productivity/organization/how-prioritize-your-life?page=all#sthash.Am0msHHo.dpuf
