Stephen Covey’s Matrix For Time Management
Managing your time well doesn’t mean making a to-do list and then checking off the items one by one. It means knowing the right prioritization, planning and efficient execution of your tasks, and of course when you should delete something from your schedule. Well, we have good news for you: there is something that can help you make better use of your time. It also shows you how to figure out what to really spend your time on. We’re talking about Stephen Covey’s time management methods.
Covey himself said that time management isn’t just about organizing your tasks. He claimed that it was really a way of life to use your time. Because how you organize your time also plays a big role in your well-being.
“There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important things.”
Brian Tracy
Stephen Covey’s time management matrix consists of four quadrants. Each of these represents a different priority. Each quadrant also includes specific activities that are handled differently depending on where it is located. We now want to take a closer look at this matrix.
The first quadrant
Draw a cross. When you draw it, you will get four empty spaces. These four fields are Stephen Covey’s four quadrants of the time management matrix. The first quadrant is in the upper left. This contains everything that falls into two basic categories: urgent and important.
Here you put in all the tasks that you cannot and should not neglect under any circumstances. This quadrant represents everything that has top priority. This means that you should complete these tasks as soon as possible. Leave all other activities aside until you have completed the first quadrant.
Let’s take an example: One task you could put in this quadrant would be paying an unpaid utility bill. You have to make sure that the electricity is not turned off. Other situations that belong in this quadrant would be, for example, caring for sick relatives and filing tax returns on time.
The second quadrant: important, but not urgent
The second quadrant has to do with challenges that you don’t have to deal with right away. But these are still urgent tasks. In other words, these are the tasks that are important but not urgent. Typically, the related results are more important in the long term than in the short term.
None of the tasks in this quadrant are life and death. But they are still very important for your quality of life and your well-being. The best example of this is your health. Everything in life depends on your health and that is why it is important to take care of it. Failure to take care of yourself may not be serious in the short term, but it may be devastating in the long run.
Other activities that fit into this field are tasks such as preparing for medium-term final exams or maintaining relationships with friends and partners. It is also about everyday things, such as sports. Or about keeping yourself up to date with the help of news.
The third quadrant: urgent, but not important
This is one of the trickiest quadrants. It is not always easy to find out which tasks or activities belong here. Why? Because their urgency gets your attention. But just because they attract attention doesn’t mean they are important.
The third quadrant is where you write down all of the unnecessary activities that you engage in out of habit or by chance. Perhaps you will meet someone and start a conversation with them that will distract you from your tasks in the first quadrant. Or you get lost in a discussion about something trivial on social media and spend way too much time on it.
The fourth quadrant: neither urgent nor important
The fourth quadrant includes everything that basically does not add anything to your life that is neither urgent nor particularly important. The strange thing about these tasks is that you end up spending an infinite amount of time with them.
This is the quadrant you put unnecessary things in, like checking your email every five minutes. Or sending text messages even though neither you nor the person you are talking to really have anything important to say. Other examples of the fourth quadrant are television and online shopping.
Good time management
Most people who use Stephen Covey’s time management methods quickly find that they only fill in the first and third quadrants at first. It is relatively easy to identify urgent and important and urgent but not important tasks.
Covey predicted that this would happen because we usually consider everything to be urgent. He also pointed out that it is precisely this sense of urgency that keeps us so busy. Therefore it is advisable to learn to move from these two fields to the other. This will help you make progress in your time management.
The creator of the model also said that you should mainly focus on Quadrant 2. According to him, there you will find satisfaction and happiness. If you can get a clear picture of what is going on in this field and focus on it, Stephen Covey’s time management matrix has served its purpose.
