Time Management - Important and Urgent

Time management and effectiveness can be improved by using a decision matrix that helps sort out priorities. The most important items on a to do list are those activites that are both “important” and “urgent”.

• Important activities have an outcome that leads to achieving one’s goals.
• Urgent activities demand immediate attention, and are usually associated with achieving someone else's goals.

By defining which activities are important and which are urgent, we can overcome the natural tendency to focus on unimportant urgent activities.

The important-urgent decision matrix is a handy tool and reminder to post on your wall or computer screen.

History

Stephen Covey, the management guru, popularized the Eisenhower’s Decision Principle in his book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". Covey created a decision matrix that consists of a square divided into four boxes:

1) Urgent/Important, 2) Not Urgent/Important, 3) Urgent/Not Important, and 4) Not Urgent/Not Important:

In a 1954 President Eisenhower, who was quoting Dr J. Roscoe Miller, president of Northwestern University, said: "I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent." Eisenhower demonstrated his organizational abilities, effectiveness and ability to get important and urgent things done both as the allied commander in WW II in Europe and as US President for eight years.

Challenges

The first challenge is to get beyond being driven by only urgent tasks and demands – crisis, deadlines and last-minute preparations.

A longer-term challenge is carving out time for tasks, like a strategic plan, which is important but not urgent. This may require longer-term changes in the organization so that the leader of the organization can find time for long-term important activities. This might include delegation, training other managers to take over activities, upgrading staff capacities, rationalizing or changing organizational strategies.

Other Best Practices

time management effective CEO

Resources

• First Things First - Stephen Covey on Wikipedia.

• Time Management - The Eisenhower Method on Wikipedia.

• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey