Before I start of this post I would like to ask you to think of an answer to this question: What one thing could you do that you aren’t doing now that if you did on a regular basis would make a tremendous positive difference to your personal or professional life?
One book I enjoyed reading very much was Stephen Covey‘s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the concepts in this book is about time management and the four quadrants of time.
Quadrant I: Urgent and important matters. Crises, pressing problems, deadline-driven projects. We all have these things; we’ve all got to do them.
Quadrant II: Non-urgent but important matters. Relationship building, planning, recognising new opportunities, improvements to your workplace, exercise, recreation. Things we know we should do but don’t because they’re not urgent.
Quadrant III: Urgent but not important things like phone calls, email, interruptions, popular matters, some meetings. This is visible stuff on-hand at the moment that isn’t really important. It’s easy to get caught up in this quadrant!
Quadrant IV: The worst of the lot – non-urgent and non-important matters. This includes trivia, spam, time wasters, distractions, non-productive activities.
OK. I bet your answer to the above question was a Quadrant II activity!
For Covey, time management, is all about minimising the Quadrant III and IV activities so that you can concentrate on Quadrant II (Quadrant I just has to be done!). It’s so easy to get caught up with your head down gardening that you don’t look up to realise you’re in the wrong garden!
Think about what it is you really want to achieve. A successful design business? How are you going to achieve that? How can you expand your business without neglecting what you’ve already worked hard to achieve?
I’m also a big believer in meditation to clear your head and realise your goals. I’ve talked about the method on my quitting smoking website. It’ll work for non-smokers as well.
This was written in response to a productivity meme. I was invited by webee‘s productivity post. Who was invited by Paul Enderson. Who was invited by Instigator Blog. Other excellent posts in this meme are Aaron’s 5 tips, Chris’s flow state and Tara’s productivity secrets
Nice addition to the project – well done!
Nice post, and thanks for the mention.
I learnt all about the four quadrants of time in a recent people management course I did. Interesting stuff.
Thanks Paul. Thanks Aaron, I’ve added David Allen’s Getting Things Done that you mentioned in your post to my Amazon wish list!
I have been meaning to get that book as well. . . I just can’t seem to find time in my schedule to get to the bookstore or that website. . . come to think of it, I have a meeting that I have to get to right after I forward all of these cute little forwards. . . then I have to run or I’ll be late. . . har har
hi rob,
nice aproach. this meme really is about time management… yet, none of us defined it.
great job and thanks for the mention
webee
[is a design blog]
Yes, Waylon, I know what you mean. Thanks, webee, I really wish I could manage my time!
For managing your tasks/projects and increasing your productivity you might try out this web-based application:
Gtdagenda.com
You can use it to manage your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
A mobile version is available too.
As with the last update, now Gtdagenda has full Someday/Maybe functionality, you can easily move your tasks and projects between “Active”, “Someday/Maybe” and “Archive”. This will clear your mind, and will boost your productivity.
Hope you like it.
Thanks for the recommendation, Dan. I’m not sure if I’ll sign up for it as I don’t think it’s for me. Maybe someone else will be better suited to it.
very well written article… straight and to the point, very useful.
I’m on a constant search for enhancing my productivity.
Thank you, Ryan. Good luck!
Great site!
Success comes to those people who can manage their time according to their priorities. It is due to the fact that they can finish doing important tasks at a certain period of time without rushing things and without becoming reckless.
Thank you for the comment, Jason. I agreed with your excellent synopsis.
Hi Rob,
A good post and nice summary of Covey’s principles. Learning time-management itself seems ‘urgent and important’ for me at the moment. Hoping to be able to do so this new year.
Susheel.
Thanks, Susheel, I think time management is probably something that will be “urgent and important” every year from now on for all of us!