In order to manage ourselves effectively, we must put first things first. But we must have the discipline to put the most important things first, not the most urgent things as so many people do. Get "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" Here:
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Transcript:
Covey starts out by saying that in order to stay on track toward our goals, we need to have the willpower to do something when we don't want to do it. Where a lot of people go wrong is that they act with their emotions and impulses instead of their values.
It’s captured all too well by this quote of Steven Covey: “The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.”
I’m sure you’ve had moments where you really don’t want to go to the gym even though you planned to do it. In these moments it’s especially important to do it, you will build up a tolerance to your own lies by doing this.
Sometimes, we react to urgent matters that in reality are not all that important. Think of sending back a quick text message to your friend while you’re in the middle of reading a book to learn something new and now you’ve lost your train of thought.
Covey developed a simple framework for the types of problems we encounter in our life.
This is that framework:
When we focus on something in Quadrant 1 we spend our time managing crises and problems. These are important and urgent matters. Having too much of this can lead to stress.
Matters of little importance are shown in Quadrant 3. They can still be urgent or at least have the illusion of urgency. These activities can take the form of random interruptions, calls, meetings and popular activities. Focussing too much on this leads to a short-term focus and a lack of control.
The activities in Quadrant 4 are neither important nor urgent. Think of timewasters like, complaining, gossiping or commuting during rush hour. Too much of activities like these and it can lead to being highly dependant on others and feeling a lack of purpose.
I’ve saved Quadrant 2 for last since these are the most overlooked activities. The activities in this quadrant are Important but not so urgent to many people. Activities such as; Relationship building, Meditation, Planning or Health-related activities. This quadrant is at the very heart of effective personal management. It’s things that we know we need to do but somehow seldom get around to actually doing because they don’t feel urgent from moment to moment.
So how can we focus more on activities from this quadrant? I’m glad you asked.
To focus our time on activities in quadrant 2 we have to learn how to say no to some other activities. The ones that might sometimes seem urgent but really aren’t.
When we focus on Quadrant II, it means we're thinking ahead, working on the roots, and preventing crises from happening in the first place!
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”.
Now, this wouldn’t be a Lifelong Learner episode if we didn’t give you some practical advice. So here are some key lessons from the book.
Create your own framework as we discussed earlier. Put your daily, weekly, monthly activities and habits in a framework like this one and divide them amongst the quadrants. Pay extra attention to quadrant 2 and make a deal with yourself that this always comes first!
If you want to go one step further, estimate how much time you spend on average per day on each quadrant. Then roughly log the activities over 3 days or a week, then take the average per day and see how accurate your estimate is. How much time did you spend in Quadrant 2? Did you neglect it?
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