Make time for the important things with the time management matrix

If you have too much to do and not enough time, the time management matrix could be helpful to you.

Picture the moment.... It's the day before a big presentation at work or your boss is demanding a report that you need to get in this afternoon. Once again you have left it to the last minute and you are stressed.

You know the feeling, the heart is thumping and the adrenaline is rushing your thoughts. You are under pressure. If only I had done this earlier!

Does this sound familiar? Many of us have experienced these crises at work or in our personal lives. No matter what we do, there just isn't enough time to do what we have to do.

The time management matrix gets you to question what is 'important' or 'urgent' in your life. Some people think that 'urgent' and 'important' are the same, however there is a big difference between the two

By asking this question and acting on it, you can greatly enhance your use of time and lower your stress levels

Is the task important or not?

Sharing time with your family, professional development and training, socializing, being active and healthy, may be important to your personal and professional goals. Activities that contribute to your vision and goals exist in quadrant 1 or 2.

On the other hand, spending time on routine emails and phone calls, attending some meetings, watching TV, may not be so important to your personal and professional goals. These activities reside in quadrants 3 or 4 of the time management matrix.

Is the task urgent?

The way that you answer this question is a good indicator for the amount of stress you likely feel in your life.

Urgent tasks are those that cannot be put off. Phone calls and snap deadlines from your boss are things that you can’t really put off. The reality is that things will pop up unannounced that will demand your immediate attention.

Non-urgent tasks are those things that don’t demand our immediate attention. They may include making some types of phone calls, watching TV, some forms of socializing, planning your time, setting goals.

Making the time management matrix work for you

From a time management point of view, you want to spend most of our time in quadrant 2, pro-actively pursuing those things that are important to us.

What activities do you do that fall into quadrant 2? These are tasks that are important but not urgent. Activities that typically fall into quadrant 2 of the time management matrix are prevention-related activities, such as computer maintenance; relationship building; strategic planning, such as training and goal setting; recognizing new opportunities and vacations.

By doing these important tasks in quadrant 2 of the time management matrix, we are able to devote the time that is needed before they become urgent. However, often urgent things crowd out the important things – it is easy to happen and results in stress and ineffective use of our time.

Moving from Quadrant 2 to Quadrant 1 increases your stress

From a time management point of view, if you are spending most of your time in quadrant 1 then you are on the treadmill of putting out fires.

What activities do you do that fall into quadrant 1? Typically these tasks are done because they are urgent, and their importance means they have to be done. This is a stressful use of your time.

Being in quadrant 1 is stressful.

Below is a list of important things that are best done in a proactive way (in quadrant 2), but if you don't attend to these things, then these important things become urgent and may turn out to be crises (quadrant 1).

• build your relationship with family and friends (quadrant 2) if not attended you will have to spend time to repair relationship problems (quadrant 1);
• provide professional development for employees (quadrant 2), if not attended you will need to quickly train employees because of inadequate knowledge to do the job; (quadrant 1)
• exercise and eat healthily (quadrant 2) if not attended may lead to the doctor’s ordering you to exercise and eat well to keep your cholesterol down (quadrant 1);
• plan and work diligently on an essay or exam study (quadrant 2) if put off will result in you cramming the night before (quadrant 1);
• do routine maintenance on computers (quadrant 2) if not attended will lead to having to repair a broken computer and loss in productivity (quadrant 1);
• take time out to relax (quadrant 2) if not respected may result in you taking a sick day from work because you need to de-stress (quadrant 1);

These examples show how important tasks can be crowded out due to urgent and non-important activities, resulting in:

• Lack of control and confidence –you are reacting to the situation rather than planning – this can mean we are not moving towards our goals.
• higher levels of stress levels that reduced ability to make decisions (research suggests optimal functioning is a relaxed alert state)
resulting in possible crisis management.

Quadrant 3

This is an urgent but unimportant task. What activities do you do that fall into quadrant 3? These may be tasks that land on your desk, or an unimportant phone call.

You will find that there are many tasks that fall into Quadrant 3 for you, and it is a good idea to examine whether the tasks have to be done, as more benefit will come from spending time on those things that move you towards your goals.

Quadrant 4

This type of task is not urgent and not important. Unfortunately these jobs do get done at the expense of more important tasks. This is because they offer a change of pace, are generally easier to do and have less stress associated with them. These tasks do not move you towards your goals, and could be dropped, so that you can do more value-added tasks. What activities do you do that fall into quadrant 4?

Use the time management matrix to get more quadrant 2 time

By now you should have a clear idea that quadrant 2 of the time management matrix is the area that moves you in the most effective way possible towards your goals, whether it is work, study or spending time with your family and friends. It does this by focusing you on the most important tasks with minimal stress (unlike quadrant 1).

So how do you get more time in quadrant 2?

If you are like most of the people, you feel pressured by time, so cutting those important urgent tasks are just not an option. However, you can’t continue to focus on quadrant 1, as it is akin to “spinning your wheels and going nowhere”. You will just spend your day putting out fires, and at the end of the day retreat to quadrant 4. That is living life by crises to crises.

By spending more time in quadrant 2 you reduce the time you spend putting out fires. This can be done a couple of ways:

1. Consider dropping those things that are not important to you.
2. Building upon your values and the vision of the person that you want to be, through a systematic goal setting plan. This provides direction and helps you to prioritize your time.
3. By setting up a schedule, probably best done on a weekly basis, that incorporates your goals and action plans.
4. By knowing what your timewasters are (such as procastination and interruptions) taking steps to reduce them.