Time Management

Stephen Covey speaks about his Time Management Matrix in his best selling book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. I have read this book several times. Each time I look through it, I find something that I can apply in my life.

There are many times we feel that we are in crisis mode, putting out fires, reactive to situations or have a since of hopelessness because of outside influences. Other times we may feel proactive, on top of tasks, influential and organized. The question is, how do we maintain the feeling of control in our lives, and not be in crisis mode all the time?

Stephen Covey does an excellent job in his illustration of Time Management Matrix. The Time Management Matrix is a quadrant in which we spend our time. As you can see in the model above, if we live our life by the influence of others, we are in Quadrant I & III. These would be outside interruptions, some one else’s problems thrown over the fence for us to take care of. A lot of our time is consumed in dealing with the day-to-day things in these two Quadrants. We usually do not have a lot of control of Quadrant I unless we some how free up some time elsewhere. Quadrant III is simple. just learn to say no.

Going back to our original question, how do we maintain the feeling of control in our lives, and not be in crisis mode all the time? It’s simple, we need to invest more time in Quadrant II. How do we do that? We do that by stealing time in Quadrant IV. Quadrant IV is time wasters. Laziness, doing nothing, surfing the internet, unproductive activities. As we take time from Quadrant IV, we invest time into Quadrant II. We become proactive. We begin to plan, forecast and balance our life. We invest in continued education or vocational training to increase our knowledge so were better prepared in our professional activities. We make our selves more marketable. We develop leadership skills and become influential to others.

As we invest more time in Quadrant II by taking time from Quadrant IV, Quadrant I will shrink. As we learn to say no to Quadrant III, you will find you have more power to invest in Quadrant II which in turn you will become more proactive and productive individual.

To read more about Stephen Covey, visit his website http://www.stephencovey.com. I highly recommend his books.