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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Managing Your Time David Wright, UKLA Director General


Speak to anyone about time management and some people will say they wished they had a few more hours in the day to get more done. Managing your time means becoming more effective with the time you have by working smarter and not necessarily harder.


That means prioritising the important, getting urgent tasks carried out quickly and efficiently, but also learning to set aside that which isn’t urgent or important. And even occasionally saying no. Stephen Covey, famous American author and academic, developed a model of time management that helps people to prioritise their work based on four key factors. Whether a task was urgent or non-urgent, and important or non-important.


Covey said that effective people will spend more time in Quadrant 2, working on activities which will pay dividends over the longer-term, whilst avoiding activities in Quadrant 1 which are reactive and might arise due to poor or a lack of planning.


Activities in Quadrant 1, Covey argued, should be dealt with quickly and decisively. Get it done and move on. Activities in Quadrant 2 in comparison form the basis of effective working and pay dividends over the longer-term.


In terms of the non-important, it helps to minimise work in Quadrant 3 and 4 in favour of activities in


URGENT IMPORTANT


Quadrant 1 Urgent/Important Crisis Pressing problems Deadline driven projects


Quadrant 2. Although some activities in Quadrant 4 are pleasurable and might take up far too much time like planning what activities you will do at the weekend.


Activities in Quadrant 3 are the Urgent/Non-Important disrupters. The sudden phone call that cuts across your desk when you are head down on another important task. A meeting that happens regularly for which there appears to be no apparent outcome, and no tangible benefit for participants.


Some activities might change quadrants over time. At the start of a new project, for example, you might spend more time on planning or developing business relationships with the project team. As project deadlines occur, and activities happen or don’t, then work could begin to shift into Quadrant 1. A deadline is missed, a project resource suddenly isn’t available or the customer wants it tomorrow and not next week.


Through his research Covey found that some managers were spending as little as 5% of their time on activities in Quadrant 2, the Important/Non-Urgent tasks, and the majority of their time fire-fighting (Quadrant 1 Urgent/Important), or responding to issues which were not important (Quadrant 3 or the disrupters). By shifting focus to more of their time spent on activities in Quadrant 2, Non-Urgent/Important, they improved their effectiveness and the impact they had on their work and on their businesses.


NON-URGENT


Quadrant 2 Non-Urgent/Important Business relationships Finding new opportunities Long-term planning Preventative activities Personal growth Recreation


NON-IMPORTANT Quadrant 3 Urgent/Non-Important Interruptions


Emails, calls, meetings Popular activities Proximate, pressing matters


Fig 1: The Covey Time Management Matrix


Quadrant 4 Non-Urgent/Non-Important Trivia, busy work Time wasters


Some calls and emails Pleasant activities


38


LUBE MAGAZINE NO.151 JUNE 2019


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