The Four D’s To Better Time Management
One resource we all possess and cannot get back once gone is time. There are exactly 24 hours in a day and no matter how hard you try, you cannot have more. Time is always fair to everyone. What do I mean by this? It does not matter if you are rich, middle-class, or poor, as everyone has the same amount of time in a day. This is the beauty of time.
People who manage their time efficiently tend to be a lot more successful than people who use it meaninglessly. Whether you are a student, employee, manager, or in any other professional, you need to perfect your time management skills. Doing this is important no matter what your current skill level is, since life is dynamic in nature and you want to upgrade yourself with the latest management techniques to be more efficient and productive.
But…where do you start?
Here is a simple concept, easy to understand, but difficult to implement. If exercised correctly and thoroughly it can help you achieve your objectives in the smartest way possible. I couldn’t possibly call myself a business graduate if I did not use the help of a matrix to further explain my content. Here’s what it is:
Eisenhower’s Decision Matrix
For better understanding the matrix, I have listed down what each quadrant (top left to bottom right) refers to -
- Quadrant I or Do: Urgent and important tasks
- Quadrant II or Decide: Important but not urgent tasks
- Quadrant III or Delegate: Not important but urgent tasks
- Quadrant IV or Delete: Not important and not urgent tasks
Quadrant I are important activities that you need to perform to avoid future negative consequences. You would like to keep these activities at a minimum. They are usually attributed to bad planning. People mention they are busy when they have many things placed in this quadrant. A few examples of these are crises, deadlines, urgent issues, etc.
Quadrant II activities are done after completing quadrant I activities. People tend to push these activities thinking they are unimportant. However, they are wrong. They might seem less important in the short-term, but in the long-term, these are the tasks that make the difference. An effective way to do this is to schedule these tasks into your daily/weekly to-do lists.
Quadrant III activities are important tasks you have to do for someone else but are not beneficial to you. You may think they are meaningless, but end up working on it anyway. When dealing with an abundance of such tasks, you must be able to ask for help from your colleagues. By entrusting tasks to them, you will be able to manage your time effectively.
Quadrant IV activities are tasks that do not need to be carried out in the first place, but you end up procrastinating. You should be able to identify these tasks and let them go to make room in your schedule for the more important tasks at hand.
Now, since you understand the different components of the matrix, I will delve further into what the ultimate strategy will be to effectively use this matrix to be an expert in time management. These are the steps -
- Minimize quadrant I activities by following better planning and delegating procedures.
- Increase quadrant II activities as it will help you plan and tackle better for future quadrant I activities.
- Ask for appropriate help from your colleagues with quadrant III activities. But, also keep in mind your quadrant III activities could sometimes be part of your colleagues quadrant II activities.
- Be aware of your quadrant IV activities and stop performing them. Instead, make time to perform more quadrant II activities.
Always find the time to perform the things worth doing, both in the short-term and the long-term. Do you know where truly productive people spend their time? Thinking or Deciding (quadrant II). So try to practice this each day and soon you will be a master at time management.
Best of luck!
