Frasch Ideas—Examine, Inquire, Explore

Habit 3

• Posted by Theresa on January 12th, 2007 filed in Responsibility, Book Review

Habit 3 is “Put First Things First” which is to prioritize and do the most important things first. Habit 3 asks you to identify and eliminate unimportant activities that eat up valuable time. This allows you to focus on what matters most to you both personally and professonally.

Stephen Covey has developed what he calls a Time Matrix that is divided into four quadrants.

Quadrant IV is the Quadrant of Waste. It is filled with those things that are neither urgent or important. It is filled with excessivity and mindlessness, things like:

• excessive computer games
• aimless internet surfing
• mindless TV
• meaningless conversations
• trivia
• busy work
• irrelevant phone calls, mail, and email
• sitting around doing nothing

Quadrant III is the Quadrant of Deception. It is filled with those things that are urgent but not important, things like:

• needless interruptions
• unnecessary reports
• unimportant meetings
• unimportant email and phone calls
• other people’s priorities and pressing matters
• other people’s issues

We should try to stay out of and avoid Quadrants III and IV. He calls these “living below the line.” Ideally we should “live above the line” and live mostly in Quadrant II. Our Quadrants shouldn’t be equal in size, but rather more like this:

Quadrant I is the Quadrant of Neccisity. It is filled with those things that are urgent (meaning it requires immediate attention) and important, things like:

• crises
• deadlines
• angry customers
• sick child
• flat tire
• pressing problems

We will always have things in Quadrant I, but as we become better planners and more adept at Putting First Things First we will find ourselves with less in QI and more in Q2. What is Quadrant II?

Quadrant II is the Quadrant of Effectiveness. These are activities that you fine valuable and that contribute to your mission, values, and high-priority goals. Things like:

• planning and preparation
• education
• training and development
• relationship building
• renewing yourself
• prevention

Quadrant II activities are seriously important but they do not have immediate consequences, therefore they often get put on the back burner. We allow things in the other quadrants to take control of us instead of the other way around. Quadrant II is where we should spend most of our time but it will take planning and practice.

Next time I will spend some time on how to be more effective and how to spend more time in Quadrant II.

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