The time matrix - follow the basic thumb rules

This article relates to a good time management. I am inspired by this matrix and decided to pour some gyan into your mouths to light your brains with some innovative ideas. These are told and practiced by most people who succeeded in their lives as leaders





URGENT NOT URGENT





UI NUI IMPORTANT






UNI NUNI NOT IMPORTANT


Q! - URGENT & IMPORTANT


Q2 - IMPORTANT but NOT URGENT


Q3 - URGENT but NOT IMPORTANT


Q4 - NOT URGENT & NOT IMPORTANT



DEFINITIONS


URGENT - Tasks that take veNOTry less time to complete. The quickies


IMPORTANT - Tasks that need an ample amount of time allocation - The planned ones


THUMB RULES - in office


URGENT & IMPORTANT - The tasks for which ne is hired for a firm.


URGENT but NOT IMPORTANT - Not important for me but for others. I can spend quick time to attend them because they are urgent and need to be attended now.


IMPORTANT but NOT URGENT - Need to spend some time on them. They are important for me. but they need not be so urgently done. I can plan as per my convinience.


NOT URGENT & NOT IMPORTANT - All personal tasks that come across when I am at desk. I need not give priority NOW and need not spend ample amount of time NOW. I can do it at home


THUMB RULES - at home

URGENT & IMPORTANT - The tasks that need immediate attention at my home and are to be done NOW. I cannot go ahead unless I do it.
URGENT but NOT IMPORTANT - Some help my friends or relatives need. Need to attend them as it is important for them and urgent for me.


IMPORTANT but NOT URGENT - Some regular important activities that I need to plan but no so urgent that I have to do it NOW

NOT URGENT & NOT IMPORTANT - All tasks at my personal level which donot make ANY relevance to me. Forget ! why I am thinking about them too much?

Planning daily activities

Quite important! based on where I am! IF I am at my office, then the above rules for office exist in nature and give my critical time. IF I am at my home priorities change.

These are not told by me but by many succesful people and these achievers always stress on planning. What is a life if it has no goal and a plan and a schedule? We follow some process at office only to impress our bosses and at home what is the process we follow? The basic nature of relaxation and leisure makes us not to plan the personal things properly. Being so sincere at offices, why many fail to manage their schedules on the personal activities? It is lack of planning of the activities properly. Many people are very much ignorant of ground rules and suffer in their life with their mis-timing and cause others to suffer. Some people excel well in their careers but fail to impress their spouses only because of lack of organized life! (kidding - How can I say that if I am not married is not it? ok makes sense!)

Some fundaes

1. We nned to be organized

2. We should know when to prioritise what to do

3. We need to work to make priorities

We are enough matured and say " I know these! " Ok! Then what is the problem?

- Either we were forgetting them or either donot know how to work like this mentioned above

- We approximately are aware of them. But we are too busy to follow rules

- We know rules. We hate to follow rules since we DONOT want to follow

Out of above three, two are very easy to get corrected. If we are forgetting the rules or way to plan, we can make ways NOT to forget them by making a note of them. The expenditure will take a pen and paper to note a daily plan, weekly and monthly plan and follow them. That is what the quadrant matrix is all about. Follow simple ground rules and write your daily schedule. Second one - If we are too busy to follow rules - again we need matrix to basically organize ourselves as when we need to be busy with what so as to make sure that we spend busy time as per planned timing. Third - You are a haw and not the hem. You need a latest reading of "Who moved my cheese". We are most sophisticated to continue something we already know. Sometimes we are driven by urgency and we are not able to think about some RULE to make us force to do things in that way only. We are skeptical about it since we donot know what the schedule next week would be. Or mostly we like to be too dynamic than static in changing next moment plan due to urgenncy. Everything again boils down to a word urgency.

If you are a very busy person and you are driven by urgency and deliver the best when at urgency, it is the very procastination that is creating a sense of urgency in your activities. If you follow the matrix and give most importance to the way of first defining the 1st quadrant activities then your priorities will surely change. If you need to deal with others, just move to Q3 if it can be done quick or put it as Q4 if it can be dealt later. Plan your daily Q2 activiies to give importance. IF important tasks are well ahead planned without urgency then the very sense of urgency for Q2 tasks does not appear. And you will have sufficient time for Q1 to complete NOW. It is the very NOW that you need to agree with to complete the tasks that you list as Q1. Anything that releates to your duties are all Q1. Beware! donot run away! Some day you HAVE to do them! It is better to do it NOW them doing them LATER correct?

Life has many unexpected things. We get to go off with many things which we need to attend in no time correct? Learning to be as quick enough as it takes will make our lives easier. Planning important things is most important aspect of scheduling. One who is NOT driven by sense of urgency in life - is a great achiever. Since he plans ahead as what the very basic sense of urgency is for. He knows when to be urgent and where the important one is! Hopefully the definition of ground rule will help him each time dividing tasks one by one and keeping himself cool. It is not that priorities with URGENT - IMPORTANT category change but it is that how best we can determine which one to finish first and which one to finish next. Again it takes only few minutes for us to do that! After all it is a matter of pen and paper right? I agree we are hi-tech people and we all have organizers in our cellphones! Let us start using them!

Neverthless to say! writing this blog took me approximately one and half hour for total compilation and posting which I am doing it as IMPORTANT but not URGENT. I wanted to share with others which is IMPORTANT - I need to spend some ample time for it. NOT URGENT for me - it is not a immediate task to finish quickly NOW correct? hence doing in leisure time. OK! Time for now to plan my weekend activities based on time matrix!