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In the words of
Henry David Thoreau, "It’s not enough to be busy, so are
the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?" Even
those of us who are masters of organizing and
prioritizing our time find ourselves caught in cycles of
busy work and running in place, rarely getting to the
major projects that matter the most.
If that happens to even the best of us, what about our
students? They often find themselves overwhelmed by the
opportunities and priorities that school can bring,
because they lack the time management skills that make
the difference between just being busy and being busy
about what matters.
The Action Priority Matrix is available as part of the
"Time Management" e-chapter of Foundations of
Learning (4th ed.).
Visit us online to learn
more about Foundations of Learning!
What
follows is an excerpt from the Time Management chapter
of Foundations of Learning:
Use the Action Priority Matrix to help you decide what
type of task is the most rewarding and efficient
use of your time, as you strive to meet your goals. The
Matrix can also be used as a way to take your time
management pulse—to see what kinds of projects or tasks
take up the majority of your time.
Impact
(the vertical axis) is the degree to
which the task will advance your goals.
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If your goal is
earning a high grade on a math test, a high-impact
task might be reviewing your graded assignments and
practicing any problems where you made mistakes.
-
For the same goal
of a high grade on a math test, a low-impact task
might include sharpening a couple of extra pencils
for use during the test. Or, in the words of Henry
David Thoreau, "It’s not
enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is,
what are we busy about?"
Effort
(the horizontal axis) is the amount of
time and energy required to accomplish a task.
-
Sharpening pencils
is generally a low-effort task (unless you don’t
have a pencil sharpener).
-
Creating a table
of the types of errors you find yourself making when
solving math problems, on the other hand, is a much
higher-effort task.
Tips for using the
Action Priority Matrix:
Create a version of the Matrix that has
space in all four squares where you can write down
tasks that you need or want to accomplish
Keep your Matrix with you so that you
can add tasks as they occur to you
Remember that the Matrix doesn’t tell
you what you should do; it is only a tool to
help you categorize your activities so that you can
decide the most efficient and impactful use of your
time.
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