← Time Management - Do You Control Your Life Or Life Controls You?

Emotional Intelligence Meets Influence Without Authority In Outlook 2007 →

Prioritize What You Do – Steven Covey Way [The Way That Works]

By alik levin

June 23rd, 2008 | Time Management


Got tons of stuff to do? Do not know where to start? Cannot choose one thing one over another? Juggling too many things at once?Another day’s gone and you look back scratching your head asking yourself “what have I accomplished today?”

You need to prioritize to achieve results while keeping sane lifestyle. But how do you prioritize one thing over another?

Adopt Steven Covey’s advice – Urgent/Important quadrants as he outlines it in his First Things First book. It works for me and it should work for you too.

by jayniebell 

Steven Covey offers simple technique - Urgent/Important quadrants - to prioritize your activities should your care for achieving results.

Chance Brown shares absolutely coolest mindmap images of the concept.

Below is how it’s represented on Wikipedia:

Steven Covey Time Management

Important but not Urgent

Focus here. This is the main focus area. Day-to-day work. Directly impacts your personal achievement. This quadrant includes the following areas:

Important and Urgent

Switch quickly. Identify the event as Important and Urgent. quickly switch, enter [SWAT/under fire] mode (custody of J.D. Meier). Hit the goal. Return to “Important but not Urgent”  quadrant (usually recreation).

  • Emergency.
  • Urgent family matters.
  • Lifetime opportunity.
  • Disaster.

Not Important but Urgent

“Say NO until your tongue bleeds” – adopt this advice from Harvey Mackay. For more cool real world advices read his book - Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive: Outsell, Outmanage, Outmotivate, and Outnegotiate Your Competition.  The technique seem to produce more enemies than friends, but in the long run it pays off. You are your best friend. Take care for yourself first when you need to balance your time (notice – you are in “Not Important” quadrant!).

Not Important and not Urgent

Careful. Do not mix this one with recreation in the “Important but not Urgent” quadrant. Stay away from this one! Just stay away from it.

  • Trivia. 
  • Busywork.
  • Email shuffling.
  • Time wasters.

Self test

  • Define your life projects. Do you know what you spend your life for? If you do – can you write down it as a simple list?
  • Set goals in each. Do you know what you want to achieve? If you are – can you write down it as a simple list?
  • Allocate time. Are you aware of how much time you invest in your life time projects? If you are – how much for each project?

More details in Time Management - Do You Control Your Life Or Life Controls You?

Technorati Tags:


10 comments ↓

#1 Vered on 06.23.08 at 5:37 pm

“Stay away from this one! Just stay away from it.”

Absolutely. And you do need to learn to set up boundaries and say “no” to do that.

#2 Shilpan | successsoul.com on 06.24.08 at 5:38 am

Alik -

I liked the way you advised us to stay away from the “Time Vampires”. I guess everything boils down to one thing in a nut shell - Do you value your time?

Shilpan

#3 alik levin on 06.24.08 at 7:29 am

Vered,
Boundaries is key. In other words - allocate time proactively and stay within the allocated time.

Shilpan,
Great point! 100%. The other question to ask is “Do you value others time?”. Valuing others time express respect and builds rapport. Are you helping people to focus on their “Important and Not Urgent” quadrant? Are you dragging them into “Not Important/Urgent” quadrant for nothing? Or worse, are you wasting others time dragging then into “Not Important/Not Urgent” quadrant?

#4 Mike King on 06.25.08 at 7:02 am

This is great stuff alik. I really like this content from Covey as well and have always found it valuable to organize incoming tasks. You have a clear outline described here and like thinking about it with such a simple self test. Good stuff!

#5 Aman Preet on 08.09.08 at 1:05 pm

I REALY LIKE CVEY’S BOOK “FIRST THINGS FIRST” .
TO BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND TO FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS,TO HAVE GOALS IN LIFE AND A DRIVE TO SUCCEED, AND TO SURROUND YOURSELF WITH THINGS AND THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE YOU HAPPY- THIS IS SUCCESS!

#6 A Guide To Prioritizing By Needs: Tasks You Should Do - Practical advice on personal development, productivity and GTD on 08.20.08 at 9:01 am

[...] work seems alien to you, this system may not be for you. If you are a fan of Stephen Covey’s four quadrants you may see similarities between the “should” stage and the important/not [...]

#7 The Recipe For Intentional Life — Practice This on 10.14.08 at 1:12 pm

[...] To manage it wisely you need to Prioritize What You Do – Steven Covey Way [The Way That Works] [...]

#8 Personal Improvement - Kaizen Focus On Process — Practice This on 12.24.08 at 8:06 pm

[...] Prioritize What You Do – Steven Covey Way [The Way That Works] [...]

#9 Being highly effective | vetpad on 12.31.08 at 12:16 pm

[...] non-urgent but important tasks of planning, prioritising, communicating, reflecting, blogging etc. Alik Levin’s blog sums this up [...]

#10 How To Get What You Want In Life | Present Outlook on 03.24.09 at 1:11 am

[...] Work out your priorities. Which goals are you going to really go for? Make those things your priorities in your daily life. [...]

Leave a Comment