9/15/2023 0 Comments Priority urgent important matrix![]() ![]() ![]() Have an honest conversation with yourself: Which quadrant do you live in most of the time? If it’s not the upper right with mindful attention to the lower right-and deciding deliberately when and how you should shift things from the lower right to the upper right to make sure they get the attention they deserve-you are risking a stall in your life and career. We need to be more judicious about how we prioritize and we should find ways to delegate the things that don’t need to be done today and/or by us. Most of us spend too much of our time in the wrong quadrants. The people who are most effective at getting great things done plan and devote meaningful time to activities in this fourth quadrant-the important but not urgent quadrant. Or maybe you could have taken the family on that dream vacation, but now your eldest child is off on her career. Or maybe you could have discussed that issue with a key board member, but because you didn’t, that relationship soured. Or maybe you could have gotten your team working together effectively, but now you’re dealing with attrition. Do you leave many of the items there simmering on the back burner? Do you let promising windows of opportunity close while you delay action? Maybe you could have launched that project before your competitors did. Here we find innovation (“Where do I want this organization to be in three years, and how can we get it there?”), strategy (“How can we better differentiate ourselves from our competitors?”), professional development (“How can I deepen my capabilities as well as those of the people I’m responsible for”), vocation and career management (“What’s the right next step for me, and how can I develop and position myself to get there?”), and personal matters such as exercise, health, leisure, and family.Ĭheck yourself to see if you fall into the tragedy of the lower-right quadrant. Work in this quadrant offers big payoffs but none of the tasks here vibrates with urgency. That brings us to the lower-right quadrant, “least urgent and most important.” This one is challenging. Another good habit is to save these activities until the end of the day when your energy is lower rather than wasting your early-day productive hours here. You tell yourself, “I dealt with those three unexpected employee requests, answered sixty-three emails, and even managed to post an update on our new product on LinkedIn! Now I’ll go to lunch, and when I get back, I can start working on the truly important stuff on my to-do list.” How about asking yourself if you should deprioritize some of the things in this quadrant-or, better, delegate them to others. Attending to it offers immediate gratification, and when you’re immersed in these activities you probably feel productive. To optimize the matrix, be honest with yourself in this quadrant: what are you doing that’s kind of a waste of time?Īnd how about the upper-left quadrant, the “most urgent and least important” one? This quadrant is tricky and seductive. Consider reducing or even omitting these things. In other words, things you should be spending little or no energy on at all. Scrolling social media, mindlessly watching TV, organizing your e-mail rather than answering it. How about the bottom-left quadrant, “least urgent and least important”? In the crudest terms, this is the quadrant for junk mail and any time-sucking, low-payoff activities. This urgent/important quadrant should typically feature the central things in your life-the ones that most demand focused attention and the ones you simply must deal with immediately. It might also include crises, both business and personal: a client emergency, family health troubles, or pressure from a maneuvering competitor or an angry board member. If you consider all the things you do in a day or week, from meetings to project work to phone calls and emails, where does each of your tasks or investments of time belong? Assign each to one of the quadrants.ĭo you find the quadrant that gets most of your time and energy is the upper-right one, designated “most urgent and most important”? This quadrant should include major deadline-driven projects and deliverables such as business reviews, key hiring interviews, a strategic company offsite, or the materials for the second-quarter board meeting. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |