Do you sometimes feel like you are wasting all your time managing crises? That life was spent putting out one fire after another? Feeling worn out and drained at the end of the day? At the same time, you do not know what meaningful have you achieved? If so, then you, our dear reader, are confusing urgent matters with important ones and do not know what time management is. Today, let's talk about the Dwight D. Eisenhower principle, which he adhered to throughout the career of a general and president: “What is important is rarely urgent, and what is urgent is rarely important.”
Below we will look at the difference between these two different things and find out how understanding the Eisenhower Principle can help you become who you want.
Difference between urgent and important tasks
Urgent means the task needs immediate attention. These are the deeds that shout 'Now!' Urgent tasks put us in a reactive mode, characterized by defensive, negative, hasty and narrow-minded thinking.
Critical challenges are what contributes to our long-term mission, values and goals. When we focus on important activities, we operate in a responsive mode that helps us stay calm, rational, and open to new opportunities.
This is a pretty intuitive distinction, but most often fall into the trap of believing that all urgent action is also important. This tendency probably has its roots in our evolutionary history. Our ancestors focused more on short-term problems than long-term strategies, as the pursuit of immediate stimuli (like a vicious saber-toothed cat) can mean the difference between life and death.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Modern technologies (24-hour news, Twitter, Facebook, text messaging) that constantly bombard us with information have only reinforced this ingrained mindset. Incentive technology treats all information as equally urgent and relevant. Kirkorov's next trick will receive the same weight as policy discussions. We experience a real shock – a state in which we live in a constantly on “now” and lose the sense of long-term storytelling and time control. In this state, it is easy to lose sight of the difference between what is really important and what is simply urgent.
The consequences of this priority blindness are both personal and social. In our own lives, we suffer from burnout and stagnation, and on a larger level we are unable to solve the really important problems of our time.
What is the Eisenhower Matrix
Business thinker Stephen Covey popularized Eisenhower's decision-making principle in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In this book, Covey created a decision matrix to help individuals distinguish between what is important and not important and what is urgent and not urgent. The matrix consists of a square divided into four fields, or a quadrant, labeled as follows:
- Urgent / important,
- Not urgent / important
- Urgent / not important
- Not urgent / not important
The Eisenhower method allows a man to clearly structure his life and achieve his goals in any business and aspect of life.
Below we will describe in detail each square and explain in which of them you should spend most of the time.
Urgent and important tasks
The tasks in square 1 are both urgent and important. These are tasks that require immediate attention. And also aimed at achieving long-term goals and objectives in life. Tasks on this list represent crises, problems, or deadlines.
Here are some specific examples of urgent and important tasks:
- Reply to emails. These can be job offers, emails with business proposals that require immediate solutions, etc.
- Delivery of term paper
- Tax term
- Wife in the emergency room
- Household chores
- Heart attack and you are hospitalized
- Your child's principal called, saying that you need to come to a meeting about his behavior
Procrastination jokes are endless. But real men don't do that. We must manage our time
By planning and organizing, many of Q1's tasks can be made more efficient or even eliminated entirely. For example, instead of waiting until the last minute of a term paper (thus making it an urgent task), you could schedule your time to finish in a week. Or, instead of waiting for something in your home to fall apart and need repairs, you can follow a regular maintenance schedule. While we can never completely eliminate urgent and important tasks, we can significantly reduce them by being proactive and spending more time in Q2. Which, of course, leads us to …
Not urgent, but important tasks
Q2 Tasks have no deadlines, but help you achieve important personal, academic and work goals, and fulfill your mission as a person. The Q2 objectives focus on building relationships, planning for the future, and self-improvement.
Here are examples of non-urgent, but important tasks:
- Workout
- Time for family
- Reading of books
- Hobby
- Car and home maintenance
- Create a budget and savings plan
- Subscribe to the Bowandtie New Articles Newsletter =)
According to Covey, we should aim to spend most of our time on Q2 events. Because they provide lasting happiness, satisfaction, and success. Unfortunately, there are a couple of key issues that make it difficult to invest enough time and energy in Q2 tasks.
You don't know what is really important to you. If you don’t know what values and goals are most important, you won’t know what you should spend time on in order to achieve those goals! Instead, you will only deal with the actual tasks. If you feel like you lack a mission in life or are not sure what your core values are, we advise you to work on defining your life plan and values.
Miller's rule. Combine it with the Eisenhower principle for to-do lists
As just said, everyone has a tendency to focus on what's relevant at the moment. This is our default mode. It's hard to be motivated to do something when there is no deadline hanging over your head. Moving away from this position requires willpower and self-discipline. Qualities that do not come naturally and must be cultivated and formed.
Because Q2 events don't require attention, we keep them in the shadows and tell ourselves, 'I'll get to them after I take care of this urgent matter.' We even put aside figuring out what is most important in life. Which only perpetuates a cycle in which everything we care about consists of urgent tasks.
To overcome the bias that prevents us from focusing on Q2 activities, we must live our lives consciously and actively. A man cannot start life by default.
Urgent and not important tasks
Q3 tasks are actions that require our attention now (urgently), but do not help achieve goals or accomplish a mission. Most of the Q3 tasks are interference from other people. These often include helping them achieve their personal goals and priorities.
Here are some specific examples of Q3 tasks:
- Phone calls
- Text messages
- An employee who comes to your office during business hours to ask for a service
- A request from a former employee to write a letter of recommendation on his behalf. It may be important to him, but let's face it, it's not that important to you.
- Mom comes in without warning and wants you to help with the housework
According to Covey, many people spend most of their time on Q3 assignments thinking they are working in Q3. Since Q3 tasks help others, they definitely seem important. In addition, they are tangible tasks, the fulfillment of which gives a sense of satisfaction. This feeling occurs when deleting tasks from the list.
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – The Handbook of Every Manager or Person Striving for Time Management
While Q3 tasks are important to others, they are not important to you. They are not necessarily bad, but they need to be balanced with Q2's actions. Otherwise, you will feel like you are doing a lot of things day in and day out. At the same time, realizing that you are not really making progress towards your own long-term goals. This is a recipe for personal frustration and resentment towards other people. Men who spend most of their time working on urgent but unimportant tasks often suffer from 'good guy syndrome' and want to make others happy at their own expense.
If this is about you, become more persistent and begin to firmly (but politely) respond to requests.
Not urgent and not important tasks
Q4 tasks are not urgent or important. This is what is called a 'waste of time'. Q4s are not urgent and do not help to achieve long-term goals or mission as a person. They are mostly distracting.
Specific examples of non-urgent and non-important tasks:
- Watching TV
- Pointless surfing the Internet
- Videogames
- Social networks
- Shopping
After analyzing your time, you can find that a lot of time is spent on activities from 4 squares. Most have 'I'm wasting my life' moments after browsing the web. It is sad to realize that time could be used to achieve more attractive goals in life. We hope most of you think so.
You don't have to completely eliminate Q4 tasks from your life. After a busy day, sitting on social networks or watching your favorite TV show for half an hour is just what the brain needs to reboot.
Instead of getting rid of non-urgent and non-important tasks, try to spend a limited amount of time on them. 5% or less of your waking hours is a good indicator.
Reader's task
We ask you this week to apply the Eisenhower Matrix of Decisions to as many aspects of life as possible. Stop and ask yourself, 'Am I doing this because it is important, or am I doing this because it is urgent?'
Spending most of your time on non-urgent but important tasks will give you a sense of calm, control, and composure. You will feel like you are making progress. By spending time planning / organizing activities in the second square, you can prevent and resolve many crises and Q1 problems. Balance Q3 queries with your own needs. And enjoy the fact that you do not spend too much time in Q4 and work effectively. By prioritizing Q2 tasks, regardless of the situation, tension or time frame you face, you will gain the mental, emotional and physical ability to achieve greater heights, and not panic about poor performance.
Eisenhower Matrix Convenient Tools
To help you apply the Eisenhower Matrix, we offer the following tools.
Application on the phone
Taskman is a handy and beautiful Eisenhower Matrix application from the AppStore
It is a phone app that makes it easy to organize tasks according to the Eisenhower Matrix. We had the opportunity to play with him and we liked what we saw. Couldn't find a match for Android unfortunately.
Eisenhower Matrix Worksheet
We've created a nifty little PDF of the Eisenhower Matrix that can be downloaded here: The-Eisenhower-Decision-Matrix. Print one tonight and set aside 30 minutes to work with it. List the tasks that you spend most of your time on and arrange them in the squares of the matrix. This will give you an idea of whether you are managing your time well.
Finally
After reading, think about how to reduce the amount of time spent on tasks Q1, Q3, and Q4. And to increase the amount of time it takes to act Q2.
