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Mind Tools Newsletter 134 - August 25th, 2009
Urgent Versus Important: You Choose!
We're all constantly under pressure to get things done. Projects to complete. Appointments to keep. Today's problems to resolve. Tomorrow's meetings to prepare for. So how well do you manage these constantly changing pressures?
Manage them badly, and you're working under stress daily. Choose to manage them well, and you'll have everything coolly under control!
Sounds unlikely? The good news is that Mind Tools has some great tools and techniques that help you do this, and today's article sets out one of our all time favorite personal effectiveness techniques.
In This Issue
The Urgent / Important Matrix helps you plan your activities wisely and helps you avoid getting sidetracked, or sucked into last minute fixes. Read the article in full below - it's only available to newsletter subscribers and members of Mind Tools Career Excellence Club!
Whether you're focusing on the urgent or the important, do you find it helps to multi-task? In the Club this week, we're debating this question with help from Expert Interviewee, Dave Crenshaw, who exposes the Myth of Multitasking.
As well as many more new and featured resources in our members' area, we have two new articles for all readers on the diverse but fascinating subjects of Gen Y's First Recession and OODA Loops (a decision making tool!) For links to these articles, and for more about our Career Excellence Club members' resources, see the What New? listing below.
Enjoy today's article!
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James Manktelow and Rachel Thompson
MindTools.com - Essential skills for an excellent career!
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What's New? |
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OODA Loops
Understanding the Decision Cycle
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All Readers |
| Find out how the decision-making techniques of a fighter pilot can help you make faster, more accurate business decisions. All Readers' New Tool |
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Generation Y's First Recession
Standing Out While Blending In
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All Readers |
| The economic downturn has come as a serious shock for many Generation Y professionals. If you're in Generation Y, learn how to keep your job without curtailing your ambition. All Readers' New Tool |
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Club Resources |
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Distributive Bargaining
Negotiating When You Can't Both Win
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Club Members |
| When it comes to clinching a favorable deal, understanding the mechanics of price negotiation is key to getting what you want. Use this approach to ensure you’re never at a disadvantage. All Members' New Tool |
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Editors' Choice Article
The Urgent/Important Matrix
Using Time Effectively, Not Just Efficiently
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It's urgent, but is it really important? |
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©iStockphoto |
We've all been there: The project is due for today's meeting and we are only three quarters done. Our anxiety is at its peak, we can't concentrate, everything is a distraction, and then, finally, we blow!
Time stressors are some of the most pervasive sources of pressure and stress in the workplace, and they happen as a result of having too much to do in too little time.
With this kind of pressure all too common, effective time management is an absolute necessity. You probably use a day-planner and to-do list to manage your time. These tools are certainly helpful, but they don't allow you to drill down to one of the most essential elements of good time management: distinguishing between what is important and what is urgent.
Great time management means being effective as well as efficient. Managing time effectively, and achieving the things that you want to achieve, means spending your time on things that are important and not just urgent. To do this, and to minimize the stress of having too many tight deadlines, you need to distinguish clearly between what is urgent and what is important:
- Important activities have an outcome that leads to the achievement of your goals.
- Urgent activities demand immediate attention, and are usually associated with the achievement of someone else's goals, or with an uncomfortable problem or situation that needs to be resolved.
Urgent activities are often the ones we concentrate on. These are the "squeaky wheels that get the grease." They demand attention because the consequences of not dealing with them are immediate.
The Urgent/Important Matrix is a useful tool for thinking about this.
The idea of measuring and combining these two competing elements in a matrix has been attributed to both former US President Eisenhower and Dr Stephen Covey.
Eisenhower's quote, "What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important," sums up the concept of the matrix perfectly. This so-called "Eisenhower Principle" is said to be how Eisenhower organized his tasks. As a result, the matrix is sometimes called the Eisenhower Matrix.
Covey brought the idea into the mainstream and gave it the name "The Urgent/Important Matrix" in his 1994 business classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. |
How to Use the Tool:
The Urgent/Important Matrix is a powerful way of thinking about priorities. Using it helps you overcome the natural tendency to focus on urgent activities, so that you can keep enough time clear to focus on what's really important. This is the way you move from "firefighting", into a position where you can grow your business and your career.
The matrix is drawn as shown in figure 1, with dimensions of Importance and Urgency.
The steps below help you use the matrix to prioritize your activities:
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Firstly, list all of the activities and projects you feel you have to do. Try to include everything that takes up your time at work, however unimportant. (If you manage your time using an Action Program, you'll already have done this.)
- Next, assign importance to each of the activities – you can do this on, say, a scale of 1 to 5: Remember, this is a measure of how important the activity is in helping you meet your goals and objectives. Try not to worry about urgency at this stage, as this helps get to the true importance.
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Once you have assigned importance to each activity, evaluate the urgency of each activity. As you do this, you can plot the listed items on the matrix according to the assigned importance and urgency.
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Now study the matrix using the guidelines below, and schedule your work according to your priorities.
Figure 2: Strategies for Different Quadrants of the Matrix
Urgent and Important ("Critical Activities"):
There are two distinct types of urgent and important activities: Ones that you could not foresee, and others that you have left to the last minute.
You can avoid the latter by planning ahead and avoiding procrastination.
Issues and crises, on the other hand, cannot always be foreseen or avoided. Here, the best approach is to leave some time in your schedule to handle these. Also, if a major crisis arises, some other activity may have to be rescheduled.
If this happens, identify which of you urgent-important activities could have been foreseen and think about how you could schedule similar activities ahead of time, so they do not become urgent.
Urgent and Not Important ("Interruptions"):
Urgent but not important activities can be a constant source of interruption. They stop you achieving your goals and completing your work. Ask yourself whether these tasks can be rescheduled, or whether someone else could do them.
A common source of such interruptions is from other people coming into your office. Sometimes it's appropriate to say "No" to people, or encourage them to solve the problem themselves. Alternatively, try allocating time when you are available, so that people only interrupt you at certain times (a good way of doing this is to schedule a regular meeting so that all issues can be dealt with at the same time). By doing this, the flow of work on your important activities will be less disrupted.
Not Urgent, but Important ("Important Goals"):
These are the activities that you can plan ahead for to achieve your goals and complete your work. Make sure that you have plenty of time to achieve these, so that they do not become urgent. And remember to leave enough time in your schedule to deal with unforeseen problems. This will maximize your chances of keeping on schedule, and help you avoid the stress of work becoming more urgent that necessary.
Not Urgent and Not Important ("Distractions"):
These activities are just a distraction, and should be avoided if possible. Some can simply be ignored. Others are activities that other people want you to do, but they do not contribute to your own desired outcomes. Again, say "No" politely and firmly where this is appropriate.
If people see you are clear about your objectives and boundaries, they will often not ask you to do "not important" activities in future. |
Key Points
The Urgent/Important Matrix helps you look at your task list, and quickly identify the activities you should focus on. By prioritizing using the Matrix, you can deal with truly urgent issues, at the same time that you keep on working towards your goals. |
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A Final Note from James
If you want to be properly productive and stay sane at work, then you need to keep on top of your time management and personal organization skills. These are key subject areas at Mind Tools, and we encourage you to brush up on these skills regularly! As such, make visiting Mind Tools an "important goal" - i.e. a regular and important activity within your schedule - and you'll learn these skills, as well as full range of soft skills that we all need if we want to make the most of our working lives.
Coming soon, you'll hear more about these in our new article Why Soft Skills Matter, and you'll learn how to improve the quality of your job with the technique of Job Crafting.
Until then, have an excellent two weeks!
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James Manktelow
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Mind Tools
Essential Skills for an Excellent Career! |
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