Putting First Things First To Get The Results You Want
Posted by Reyn | January 17, 2009
Recently, I read Stephen R. Covey’s classic “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and wish I had read this book long time ago.
The part that really catch my attention is the third habit - put first things first. This habit talks about the concept of task & time management through differentiating between the meanings of urgency and importance.
In our society, most people are driven by the concept of urgency. “I need to be there by 5″, “I must answer that ringing phone”, “The deadline is tomorrow morning” and so on. Urgent things act on us and require our immediate actions. Although urgent matters are clearly visible and somewhat pressing, they are often not that important!
On the other hand, the concept of important drive us to do what needs to be done in order to get real results like networking, building relationship, planning your marketing system and so on. In short, urgent is focusing on tasks with short-term results while important is focusing on tasks with long-term results.
The Time Management Matrix below will explain how our tasks can be categorized based on urgency and importance:
Time Management Matrix
To really effect positive change in our lives, we need to reorganize the way we spend our time based on the priority of importance - not urgency. The most productive activities mostly found in quadrant 2, and this is where we must put our focus on.
In quadrant 2, things are important, yet not urgent. By having most of your activities into the this quadrant, you are in total control of your time. You truly be the master of your schedule. No more rushing to do this, do that - which makes you a slave to your own schedule. This is the state where you can perform at your peak potential.
To be honest, I used to spend quite a lot of my time on things that are urgent…that upon deeper thinking are not that important. Things like checking emails, answering tweets and accepting Facebook friends are not really that productive.
Don’t get me wrong here, those activities are good to do. But if I can actually work on things that can bring me real results like creating new AdWords campaigns, writing articles, follow-up with my downline and launching new marketing ideas, I’m better off focusing on these matters.
After understanding this concept, I began to redo how I manage my time. In listing all my daily activities, I always pick the first 5-7 activities that can bring me results closest to my targets. Next, I would do those activities FIRST before anything else.
Now, even if I have this mindset, interference can occur at anytime and it’s something that’s out of my control. If you happen to be in the same situation, I’m not suggesting you to just ignore those ‘urgent’ matters. Phone calls indeed need to be answered right away, but remember to get back to what’s important.
The danger is not in answering the phone, but what usually happen after that. When you sway your concentration away, some times, it’s not that easy to get back to that state. This is where your discipline to finish what you have started is tested. At this time, you really need to refocus yourself back into quadrant 2 and not falling into quadrant 3 or 4.
Understanding this concept is paramount to your success. After all, you are rewarded not by ‘how urgent’ your tasks are, but ‘how important’ they are.
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Posted in Powerful Entrepreneurial Mindset |
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3 Responses to “Putting First Things First To Get The Results You Want”
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Nicely done Reyn. The Time Management Matrix remind me of some NLP Matrix too.
Anyway,love your blog interface and the professional look from you. Good luck~
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I spend too much time in the quadrant of deception!
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Hey Reyn, Great post, couldn’t agree with you more about time management. I know I spend far too much time on opening email account[s] first, when it takes up most of my time. I should in fact be concentrating more on my post and my marketing concepts. Thanks for the schedule outline, I like it a lot.
jj-momscashblog’s last blog post..Taxes and blog income
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