To be successful with this method you must have a very clear understanding of what is important to you, what your long term goals are, etc… For more information about how to plan your week around this framework, see my blog post on How I Plan My Week. Just as long as you frame it correctly and consume it in the right way. Or is it? If watching TV is a stress reliever for you and serves as a way to wind down and chill out after a hectic day, it could very well be a Q2 activity. Example 2: Watching TVĬlearly another Q4 item: A time waster. Not urgent and certainly not important.īut, it could be a Q2 event (important) if you consider the event to be an opportunity to spend quality time building relationships with your parents, children, or friends. On the surface it looks clearly like a Q4 item – a time waster. Learn to distinguish between the two by using the 4 quadrants of time management matrix. We often spend our lives focused on the Urgent things instead of the Important things. Which quadrant does this fall into? The answer is it depends on YOUR priorities and what is important to YOU. The Four Quadrants of Time: Everything you do in life can be classified by its urgency and by its importance. What Quadrant Am I? Example 1: Going to a Sporting event The Question “What is important to me?” usually does not have a simple answer.

As you reduce your Quadrant 1 activities you have more time for Quadrant 2, creating a fly-wheel effect.

The beauty with spending more time in Quadrant 2 is that it should slowly chip away at all your Quadrant 1 activities.

(Put them in your calendar just like a meeting).

Schedule time to do Quadrant 2 activities.

You should now have time to spend on Quadrant 2.

This is more difficult as it involves saying NO to people.

Look at all the things in Quadrant 3 and stop doing them too.

Look at all the things in Quadrant 4 and STOP DOING THEM!.

Write down how you can prevent these things from reoccurring or from becoming emergencies in the first place: These are your new Quadrant ii activities.ī.

Write down all the Quadrant 1 and 3 activities you routinely do (all the Urgent stuff).

How do I use this to make my life better? How do we transition from Quadrants 1, 3 & 4 and make more time for Quadrant 2 activites? A. Spending too much time on non-urgent and not important things can lead to dependence on others for your basics, loss of jobs, irresponsibility, etc…

Grid 2 first person