| | I need your help. As I mentioned last month, I am working on the next series of projects for this community. In order to move forward I could really use your input. I set up a quick survey here. Please check it out. I will use your feedback to make a couple cool things to share later. I want to trade you something for your help. In exchange for helping me out, I wanted to share with you a simple idea that I use everyday. I have used it to clear a lot of the clutter and noise out of both the professional and personal parts of my life. |
If you are honestly looking for ways fit some of the practices, rituals and ideas I shared with you over the last few months into your busy life, then I suggest you give this a 1 week test drive.
The 4 Quadrants
This is another one of those excellent tools from the late Stephen Covey, and I stole it directly from the Motivate (Beta) Reading List book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Not only did I steal the idea, but I have used it almost every day for the better part of a decade.
The idea is really simple: there is a big different between "Urgency" and "Importance". Just because something is demanding your attention right now (urgent), does not make it important. In fact, a lot of things are urgent but very few things are important.
This means that everything you do, every opportunity you have, and every challenge you face, can be categorized into 1 of 4 quadrants, based on their importance and their urgency. Check out the image above and to the right to see these quadrants.
Usually, when I share this idea I spend at least an hour on it, and then 30 or so minutes in review a week later. If you like this idea a lot, and want to get into it that deep, please shoot me an email at sterlinglynk@att.net and we can set up a time to dig into it. But, today I want you to get started by having you do 4 things right now that should take you less than 9 minutes to complete. Don't keep going until you do them.
Make 3 and 4 above a daily ritual for the next 7 days and see what happens. Are you getting more stuff that matters done? Are you doing more purposeful surviving, succeeding, sacrificing and strengthening? Are you running into any problems?
If you do this, you're likely to run into some problems in the form of to compromise or go back to your old way doing things, especially at work. You'll need to navigate that, but I promise the better job you do in keeping with this ritual the happier you and the folks who depend on you will be in the long run. Let me give you an example.
Almost unnoticed, my 2 year anniversary as the Executive Director of the Madison Area Down Syndrome Society has come and gone. I remember how challenged the organization was when I first took over. Despite the heroic efforts of the organization's volunteer board of directors, there were lots of problems and lots of noise. There were programming issues, marketing issues, reputation issues, money issues, strategy and priority issues, office space issues and more. A lot of it was both urgent and important (Quadrant 1) and I needed to get it done. So, can you guess which of these fires I tried to put out in my first week on the job?
None of them. I instead cleaned the office (before and after pics below). Seriously, I cleaned.
Why? Well, it didn't look like it had ever been cleaned but I could have worked around that. It wasn't urgent. I'm not a neat freak (ask my wife), but I believed it was extremely important to get the office really organized. This was the essence of a Quadrant 2 action.
I thought at the time that I could get a handle on the organization's challenges and put out many of the fires a whole lot faster and easier with a more organized office space. I was proven correct. Taking a few days to make sure everything worked, looked presentable, and gave me access to the information I needed made my transition so much quicker. A side benefit was that I was able to consume a lot information about Down syndrome, a subject that I didn't consider myself an expert in at the time, and the organization as I put everything together.
Considering the problems that needed to be fixed, was it a risk to make "office cleaning" my first executive decision? Sure. But, I thought it was riskier not to put in the work while it was still in quadrant 2. If I waited until it was urgent, who knows what I would have been facing.
This is another one of those excellent tools from the late Stephen Covey, and I stole it directly from the Motivate (Beta) Reading List book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Not only did I steal the idea, but I have used it almost every day for the better part of a decade.
The idea is really simple: there is a big different between "Urgency" and "Importance". Just because something is demanding your attention right now (urgent), does not make it important. In fact, a lot of things are urgent but very few things are important.
This means that everything you do, every opportunity you have, and every challenge you face, can be categorized into 1 of 4 quadrants, based on their importance and their urgency. Check out the image above and to the right to see these quadrants.
Usually, when I share this idea I spend at least an hour on it, and then 30 or so minutes in review a week later. If you like this idea a lot, and want to get into it that deep, please shoot me an email at sterlinglynk@att.net and we can set up a time to dig into it. But, today I want you to get started by having you do 4 things right now that should take you less than 9 minutes to complete. Don't keep going until you do them.
- Check out the video at the very top left of this post (just click the image and it'll play in your browser). It's less than 6 and a half minutes, and it's one of the best summaries of the idea that I have ever heard.
- Decide what quadrant reading this post should be in. There is no objectively right or wrong answer here. The best answer is the one that makes sense in the context of your life.
- Look at the first item on your task list for today (or if you don't have a list, recall the first thing you need to do today). What quadrant is that task?
- If reading this post is not in quadrant 1 or 2, then stop reading right now. Consider, unsubcribing from my RSS feed or weekly emails (I won't take it personally). If the first item on your task list is not in quadrant 1 or 2, then don't do it. Keep going down your list until you find something that is actually important. Do that item and all the important items on your list first.
Make 3 and 4 above a daily ritual for the next 7 days and see what happens. Are you getting more stuff that matters done? Are you doing more purposeful surviving, succeeding, sacrificing and strengthening? Are you running into any problems?
If you do this, you're likely to run into some problems in the form of to compromise or go back to your old way doing things, especially at work. You'll need to navigate that, but I promise the better job you do in keeping with this ritual the happier you and the folks who depend on you will be in the long run. Let me give you an example.
Almost unnoticed, my 2 year anniversary as the Executive Director of the Madison Area Down Syndrome Society has come and gone. I remember how challenged the organization was when I first took over. Despite the heroic efforts of the organization's volunteer board of directors, there were lots of problems and lots of noise. There were programming issues, marketing issues, reputation issues, money issues, strategy and priority issues, office space issues and more. A lot of it was both urgent and important (Quadrant 1) and I needed to get it done. So, can you guess which of these fires I tried to put out in my first week on the job?
None of them. I instead cleaned the office (before and after pics below). Seriously, I cleaned.
Why? Well, it didn't look like it had ever been cleaned but I could have worked around that. It wasn't urgent. I'm not a neat freak (ask my wife), but I believed it was extremely important to get the office really organized. This was the essence of a Quadrant 2 action.
I thought at the time that I could get a handle on the organization's challenges and put out many of the fires a whole lot faster and easier with a more organized office space. I was proven correct. Taking a few days to make sure everything worked, looked presentable, and gave me access to the information I needed made my transition so much quicker. A side benefit was that I was able to consume a lot information about Down syndrome, a subject that I didn't consider myself an expert in at the time, and the organization as I put everything together.
Considering the problems that needed to be fixed, was it a risk to make "office cleaning" my first executive decision? Sure. But, I thought it was riskier not to put in the work while it was still in quadrant 2. If I waited until it was urgent, who knows what I would have been facing.
Give this 4 Quadrants tool a try and let me know how it works out.
Be well,
Sterling Lynk
P.S. - Please don't forget to take the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/98M5JPW. I am working on some cool things that will better with your feedback included. Thank you in advance.
Be well,
Sterling Lynk
P.S. - Please don't forget to take the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/98M5JPW. I am working on some cool things that will better with your feedback included. Thank you in advance.