The third quadrant would contain items that appear to have a high urgency, but are not at all important. This is where highly effective people focus the most. Quadrant 2 activities are the ones that will really make the difference to your life and help you accomplish a lot more of what you want. Things like strategic planning, relationship building, exercise, preparation, education and other personal development activities – all things we know we need to do but somehow seldom get around to actually doing, because they don’t feel urgent. Quadrant 2 comprises of things that are not urgent right now but important. This leads to stress, burnout, and constantly putting out fires. The problem is if you spend most of your time managing crises and problems, it’ll keep getting bigger and bigger until it consumes you. The space is reserved for emergencies and extremely important deadlines. Quadrant 1 would only contain those activities and responsibilities that require your immediate attention. The activities in Quadrant 1 would comprise of things that could not have been forseen and things that could have, if they were planned for. The 4 Quadrants Explained Quadrant 1 – urgent and important Note: Stephen Covey’s 4 Quadrants are also referred to as the Time Management Matrix or Eisenhower’s Urgent-Important Principle.Īs you can see, the two main criteria on which you evaluate tasks are urgency and importance. “The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.” – Stephen Covey The Time Management Matrix It’s introduced as part of Habit 3, “Put first things first,” and it’s designed to help you become a more effective self-manager. One effective principle for doing so comes from Stephen Covey’s bestselling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.Įven though it was originally published in 1989 a lot the ideas to achieve success are still very relevant, especially Stephen Covey’s 4 quadrants or time management matrix.īy using Stephen Covey’s 4 quadrants you’ll be able to schedule your week according to what’s most important to you and what will have the most meaningful results. We all get the same 24 hours in a day so how is it that some people are able to accomplish so much more than the rest of the population? And how can you start doing the same?

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