Posts Tagged ‘Stephen Covey’

The Key To Time Management – Putting First Things First

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

Time management can be very tricky if you look at it as trying to manage your time.  It

Cover of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effectiv...
Cover of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

is much more manageable when you look at it from the point of view of managing your tasks, and prioritizing them.  Following the philosophy of the 7 habits of highly successful people, you will get a good foundation of how you can manage and prioritize your tasks.  Read on for more!

Our time is without question our most precious resource that we have available to us today. Unfortunately, far too many people take for granted this resource and as a result, are not very productive nor are they very effective in what they do.

While there are numerous strategies available to us today, in my opinion no one describes how to manage time better than author Stephen Covey. If you do not recognize his name, he is the author of the book “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People” and in this book, he describes a unique process on how to manage your time very effectively so that you can become productive.

To paraphrase some of his ideas from his book, one of the ideas to better manage your time is to describe your day and your time in a metaphor. Think of your day as a bowl which represents the 24 hours we have in a day.

Next visualize three big rocks which represent the most important things that you need to get done that day.

Next visualize a glass of sand which represents the less important things you need to get done in your day but still need to be completed.

Finally, visualize a glass of water which represents all the distractions you have in your life which happen each day.

As Stephen describes, in order for you to fill your bowl without it overflowing, you need to place these items in a very particular order. For example, if you were to place the sand and water in first and then tried to fit the rocks in last, the bowl would overflow and you would not have any room to fit the rocks in.

When we think about the lesson from this metaphor, it demonstrates to us that in order for us to become more effective, we need to “Put First Things First” and organize our day so that we always have the time to get our most important activities done first.

By forming this new habit of prioritizing our activities, you will find that you will start to become more effective and productive in each and every day.

If you would like to get more information about time management and other personal development ideas, make sure you read the resource box below and click on the link to my blog.

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The Stephen Covey Time Management Matrix

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

The time management matrix of Stephen Covey is from his 7 Habits of Highly Successful People.  This book has been one of the cornerstones in personal development and success strategies.  His matrix allows the individual who uses it to easily see where they are spending their time so they can make adjustments.  The matrix is the easy part, categorizing your tasks may not be as easy.  Read on for more of  Stephen Covey’s grid for the management of time.

The Time Management Matrix is from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. This book saved my sanity. I found myself daily getting sidetracked and diverted from my To Do list by what everyone else thought was the top priority. It was their priority, of course, not mine, and I had a bad habit of wanting to please everyone. So what happens is that the last person to hand you a “priority” gets bumped to the top of the list. If you don’t set your own priorities, you will be tossed like a bottle on the sea. Stephen Covey simplified it immensely with his 4 quadrants in the Time Management Matrix.

Quadrant I Activities: URGENT + IMPORTANT

Crises

Pressing Problems

Deadline-driven projects

Quadrant II Activities: NOT URGENT but IMPORTANT

Prevention

Planning

Relationship building

Recognizing new opportunities

Values clarification

True recreation

Not Important

Quadrant III Activities: URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT

Interruptions, some calls

Some mail, some reports

Some meetings

Proximate, pressing matters

Popular Activities

Quadrant IV Activities: NOT URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT

Trivia, busy work

Some mail

Some phone calls

Time wasters

Pleasant activities

Covey says that many of us spend most of our timein Quadrant IV and almost no time in Quadrant II.

Consider the activities shown in each quadrant:

I. URGENT and IMPORTANT

Clearly, these activities should take first priority. However, your long term goal should be to reduce time spent here by prevention, preparation, etc. (see Quadrant II).

II. NOT URGENT but IMPORTANT

The key to success in gaining control of your time priorities is to focus on activities in this quadrant. If you are currently doing very little here, begin by carving out a small amount of time each day and building on it.

III. URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT

Many of us get trapped by other people’s sense of urgency telling us what is important. Allowing your priorities to fall here can result in a frenzied rush to get “things” done, followed by a sense of emptiness and lack of satisfaction.

IV. NOT URGENT and NOT IMPORTANT

Obviously, minimize time spent in activities in this quadrant.

I wish you luck with this and warn you that you have to be ever vigilant about it. There will always be someone who wants to revise your priorities

Be sure to visit my blog for more articles like this. Leadership Fundamentals. Read how I started my blog: http://homebusiness.about.com/u/sty/blogs/work-at-home-business-blogs/WordPress-Blog-on-Management.htm

More on Time Management Matrix:

Priority Matrix (Time Management) – Share the knowledge that I gain

Time management experts have developed a model called a time management matrix or Priority Matrix. This model helps us prioritize our activities and use our time more effectively. Through the model we can evaluate our activities in …

Publish Date: 05/14/2010

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