Anybody attempting to have a positive impact and success in their personal and professional lives requires the ability to manage their time in a way that allows them to get the job done effectively.
The most powerful resource I have found for creating an ability to manage one’s own time is in Stephen R. Covey’s international bestseller: “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” His 4-quadrant time management model is elegant in its simplicity and powerful in how it helps one organize their time. If you are effective at time management, or are familiar with Covey’s time management model, I encourage you to think of individuals who are not and suggest that book to them.
Here is the model described in 7 Habits:
Quadrant I contains both Important and Urgent activities such as going to meetings at which you are required and crisis moments.
Quadrant II contains both Important and Not Urgent activities such as building relationships and increasing your own learning.
Quadrant III contains both Not Important and Not Urgent activities such as spending time on busy work and actions that do not in any way relate to your desire to be successful and your interest in having a positive impact.
Quadrant IV contains both Not Important and Not Urgent activities such as engagement with the internet that has no point or being involved in actions that are not healthy.
Common sense demands that one of the best ways to improve your management of time is to lessen the number of non-important, Quadrant III and Quadrant IV activities in which you engage. Nobody I have coached has ever argued with the logic of that statement; it makes perfect sense to get rid of time wasters in your life.
Suggestion: Relax and think about those actions you might take to lessen the pressing nature of those Important and Urgent Quadrant I activities, lessen the amount of time spent on Not-Important Quadrant III and IV activities while increasing the time you spend in Important and Not Urgent Quadrant II activities.
Success Tip: When I have gone through this activity with leaders, the place that many of them started was eliminating meetings with the time wasters in their lives that add no value and are a time suck. By looking at your calendar over the last six months you will often identify those individuals with whom you have spent a lot of time in face-to-face, phone, video, online conversations that did not need to happen. Having difficult conversations with them explaining that you are pressed for time to get your work done and you are going to have to lessen the number of conversations you have together has proven to be a significant step that needed to be taken to free up time. A future column will discuss how to have difficult conversations.
I recently led a workshop on Peak Performance for a client. When we got to a discussion of time management and Covey’s four quadrant model a leader raised her hand and explained that she has set up her large and very busy department around the need to focus on quadrant II important and not urgent activities. Once a week during a fixed hour her team focuses on important activities that are not urgent but that they have identified as important. The corporate headquarters of this large corporation knows that the only calls that will be answered during that hour need to be directed to her so that her team can take a deep breath and work on important and not urgent activities. Their results have been so significant that the headquarters staff is now looking to figure out a way to spend more Quadrant II time together.
The first four articles in this series about how to have positive impact while being successful in your personal and professional life identified the critical need to be clear on your purpose, have a realistic understanding of your skills, have an understanding of how to identify organizations of interest (with multiple articles to follow building off of that article), and how to lessen your stress (with multiple articles following building off of that article as well).
If you are not managing your time well, you will have a difficult time effectively carrying out those activities that are essential to having a successful personal and professional life that creates positive impact. To that point, if your history has shown that you have an outstanding ability to manage your time and be successful you can pass on the need to focus on Covey’s model. If, however you are reading this and realize you might need help here I encourage you to reach out to 2-3 individuals who know you well and ask them how effectively you manage your time. Once you have had those honest conversations you will have a clearer understanding of how much of a priority improving your time management capacity is for you as you focus on being both personally and professionally successful.
In conclusion, I highly recommend Steven Covey “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” to anybody who is interested in doing further work regarding creating the time for having a positive impact.
The Amazon #1 International Bestseller, “Have a Positive Impact During Uncertain Times” – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732793808 – and website – www.havepositiveimpact.com – provide links to hundreds of additional resources designed to help individuals identify jobs of interest and ways to be successful and have a positive impact in all you do personally and professionally.