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READING
E
XPERIENCE
5: T
IME
, P
LANNING
,
AND
P
RODUCTIVITY
120
L
EARNING
TO
L
EARN
: B
ECOMING
A
S
ELF
-G
ROWER
Examples:
an engine warning light on the dashboard of your car, dangerously high blood pressure,
an emotionally or physically abusive relationship, writing the final paragraph of your term paper
(which is due tomorrow), etc.
Strategy:
Deal with it NOW!
Quadrant II: NOT Urgent but Important
These tasks or activities which need not be done immediately but are important to you and your
life goals lead to value in your life. Because the benefit for time spent on these activities tends to
be long-term, it is easy to ignore them and think that you’ll get to them eventually. But in order to
attain the value linked to these activities, you must plan and commit both the time and effort the
activities require.
Examples:
your college education, friendships, physical exercise, working on your life vision
Strategy:
Pare down the other quadrants (I, III, and IV) by expanding this one. This will lead
to a rich life of rewarding and value-laden experiences. Covey recommends, “The key is not to
prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
Quadrant III: Urgent but NOT Important
These tasks or activities which need to be done or dealt with immediately but are unimportant
to you and your life goals. Because we are attuned to responding to urgency, we tend to deceive
ourselves (or others) into believing that urgency itself indicates what is important. It is possible to
spend a life dealing with urgent, yet unimportant, activities.
Examples:
some job-related activities (the meeting that accomplishes little), the political pollster
ringing your doorbell, the friend who calls to chat when he or she is bored, the ringing phone with
a telemarketer on the other end, waiting for the cable repairman to show up, etc.
Note that an activity which would otherwise qualify as a Quadrant III activity can be changed to a
Quadrant I activity, if you are engaged in the activity because it is important to someone else and
they or their judgement are important to you. For instance, participating in that business meeting
that doesn’t accomplish much can be a Quadrant I activity if your manager wants you to be there
and you want to keep your job. The same can be said for many school-related activities such as
passing an elective course. That particular course may not be important to you personally, but
because it is important to those in charge of granting your degree (which IS important to you), the
fact that it is important to them makes it important to you.
Strategy:
As much as possible, delegate these tasks. If you cannot delegate them, find a way to get
out of them or get them done quickly.
Quadrant IV: NOT Urgent and NOT Important
These are tasks or activities which need not be done immediately (if ever), and are not important
to you and your life goals. They are the very definition of wasted time. Time spent on activities in
this quadrant is time not spent on either urgent OR important activities and can lead to feelings of
regret.
Examples:
watching mindless TV, playing video games, aimlessly surfing the net, etc.
Strategy:
Only engage in these activities when everything else is done. Or better yet, drop them
completely.