In many ways, success is a measure of your time management and prioritization skills. That’s because time is limited and time lost can not be reclaimed.
You may have a great product, fortified capital, and unlimited resources, but poor time management can pull you down. Also, not knowing what responsibilities to scrap, delegate, and prioritize can cost you.
Prioritization and time management go hand in hand because you don’t have all the time in the world to complete important and unimportant to-dos.
For example, sending a representative to a stakeholder meeting instead of attending in person could either save you valuable time or expose your company to risk.
That’s why Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix is considered one of the most valuable time management techniques for business owners, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and even employees.
We’ll cover Stephen Covey’s 4 quadrants of time management in this article and also show you tips on how to use the technique.
What Is the Time Management Matrix?
Stephen Covey introduced the time management matrix in “The 7 habits of highly effective people,” his renowned self-development book released in 1989.
The matrix focuses on efficient prioritization. It involves identifying urgent and important responsibilities and handling them accordingly.
He argued that most people are less productive because they prioritize urgent tasks over important ones.
“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”
Stephen Covey
So, to help you prioritize, the matrix uses four different quadrants that allow you to group assignments according to importance and urgency.
Background of the Time Management Matrix
While Stephen Covey popularized the time management technique, he wasn’t the first to use it.
The technique is attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower, the United States’ 34th President. He used it to organize his schedules throughout his time as President, NATO’s first supreme commander, the Allied Forces Supreme Commander during World War II, and a United States Army General.
That’s why the time management matrix is also called the Eisenhower Matrix.
What Are Important and Urgent Tasks?
As we mentioned, the time management matrix focuses on important and urgent tasks and how to handle each accordingly.
The technique uses a combination of the two types of activities to form its four quadrants.
So, understanding important and urgent responsibilities will help you better identify the type of tasks that should fill each quadrant.
Urgent tasks
Urgent tasks are activities and obligations whose deadlines are critically close or have passed.
Not all urgent assignments require a lot of time and effort and they aren’t all important. They may or may not have a significant impact on your work or life and can be delegated.
Urgent responsibilities are mostly man-made because they were regular tasks that were ignored or deferred. In some cases though, we’re not responsible for urgent tasks. For example, a software program may have a serious bug shortly after launch.
Important tasks
Tasks are considered important because they have a significant impact on your main goals. They are not necessarily urgent because their deadlines may still be far away.
That said, some important work can also be urgent when their deadlines draw close.
They also don’t have to consume time, effort, and resources. However, they require your attention and focus due to their significance.
Explaining the 4 Quadrants of Time Management
The time management matrix contains four buckets that help you determine an activity’s priority level.
Quadrant 1: Important and urgent
The first quadrant contains activities and obligations that are central to your project and have a close deadline. These demand immediate attention and are often stressed due to their time-sensitive nature and significance.
Identifying work that will fall into quadrant 1 shouldn’t pose a serious challenge. First, look at activities and obligations with a close deadline and determine if they contribute to your main goals.
You must place them on top of your priority list if they meet both standards.
Quadrant 2: Not urgent yet important
The second quadrant contains tasks that aren’t time-sensitive but critical to your main goal. While they don’t require immediate attention, you should place them next to the first quadrant on your priority list.
Filling up quadrant 2 is not as easy as identifying activities in other quadrants. That’s because we tend to tie more importance to urgent work.
For assignments to qualify as important, they must:
- Be integral to your main goals, aspirations, and projects
- Draw you closer to executing a project or meeting a target once completed
In this case, you should focus on activities that aren’t time-sensitive. That said, it would be better to prioritize them according to their deadlines.
For example, an important assignment that’s due in four days can be prioritized over the one that should be completed in two weeks.
Quadrant 3: Urgent but not important
Urgent but not important tasks don’t have any bearing on your goals and projects but are time-sensitive. Quadrant 3 contains lots of activities that potentially distract us from important work because of their time-sensitive nature. Activities in this quadrant shouldn’t be prioritized over those in the first and second quadrants.
If you don’t have time to meet the deadline here, you can delegate it to someone else, allow the deadline to pass in some cases, or turn down the activity or assignment. It is generally recommended to delegate responsibilities in the third quadrant to create more time for important tasks.
To identify urgent but not important work, determine if they have any significance on what you’re working on.
For example, if your colleague requires urgent help with an urgent task that doesn’t concern yours, you can delegate the work to someone else or politely decline. You can also offer to help out at another time after you’ve completed your important tasks for the day.
Quadrant 4: Not urgent and not important
These are time-wasting activities that should be removed from your to-do list entirely.
Tips on How to Effectively Use the Matrix
Understanding how to group activities into the different quadrants is a valuable time management skill. You’ll now be able to identify activities that you should focus on at the moment, those you should schedule for later, assignments to delegate, and activities to get rid of.
That said, placing assignments in the right quadrants is one thing, and executing them is another.
In some cases, you may be confused if you have two or more important and urgent tasks at a time. You may also face the challenge of determining which job to start within the second quadrant if you have more than one.
There’s also the additional complexity of delegating work to the right people in some cases.
The tips below will show you how to get through the assignments in your time management matrix.
Draw up a Comprehensive to-do list
Outlining all your responsibilities is the first step in prioritizing them. This comprehensive list must comprise all your obligations, activities, and work assignments.
You’ll be collating tasks from every facet of your work.
During this stage, you’re not yet identifying important and urgent tasks. Instead, you’re taking inventory of everything down to the smallest and most insignificant activity.
This method allows you to account for everything so that you aren’t surprised later. When other jobs show up during the course of work, it won’t be because you missed them.
The list should cover the duration for which you’re building your schedule. For example, if you’re trying to use the time management quadrant to prioritize daily activities, list all the work you intend to complete on that particular day.
You can also outline activities for a week and even a month.
Group important and urgent tasks
After building your to-do list, start grouping your assignments according to importance and urgency.
- First, identify responsibilities that are integral to your main project. Make sure you put down everything under this category regardless of deadline and size.
- After that, create a list for tasks with close deadlines. This list should contain every urgent assignment regardless of level of importance or size.
Ensure tasks are in the right quadrant
Once you’ve curated both lists, identify tasks that appear on the important and urgent list and place them in the first quadrant.
Then, identify tasks that appear on the important list but not on the urgent list and add them to the second quadrant.
Activities that only appear on the urgent list should be added to the third quadrant.
The remaining projects that don’t make it to either list should be deleted.
Optimize your work schedule
Optimizing your work schedule involves creating a routine that helps you complete the right tasks in less time. It means organizing your calendar to ensure your workload aligns with your time and you’re able to make each day successful. After adding tasks to each quadrant in the time management matrix, you must make sure you schedule them properly.
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”
Stephen Covey
To optimize your schedule, start by identifying the number of assignments you look forward to completing. After that, assign the right time block to each activity.
You must also ensure you give ample time for breaks.
Integrate other time management techniques
The time management matrix helps you to prioritize your activities and also shows you how to handle them. That said, there are other time management techniques that can work with the Eisenhower Matrix to help you effectively complete work in less time.
Let’s walk you through them.
The Pareto Principle
The Pareto Principle is also known as the 80/20 rule. It’s a time management practice based on the theory that 20% of your work determines 80% of your success.
The principle was first introduced by economist Vilfredo Pareto to assert the uneven relationship between outputs and inputs. He posited that 20% of causes lead to 80% of consequences.
To use that principle in your work, you have to identify the main tasks that, once completed, will make your day successful.
You could complete one activity from the first quadrant and two from the second and deem your workday complete.
The point here is to look for these key activities and focus on them.
The Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique is another useful time management practice that helps you maintain a high level of concentration and avoid procrastination.
It involves four different 25-minute work sessions separated by 5-minute breaks. Each session is called a Pomodoro. When you start an activity, you work for 25 minutes then take a 5-minute break and repeat four times. After the fourth 25-minute session, you’ll take a longer 20 to 30-minute break before starting another round of Pomodoros.
You can adjust your calendar to accommodate the Pomodoro technique since it involves four 5-minute breaks after 25-minute work periods. You can use a specialized Pomodoro Timer to simplify the process.
The Eat the Frog Method
The Eat the Frog Method involves starting your day with the most challenging and complex projects. What this implies in this case is starting your day with the responsibilities in the first quadrant. Since these assignments constitute your biggest stressors, it makes sense to start with them.
That said, you should also try to get through some activities in the second quadrant. However, begin with the most complex ones.
Time Mapping
Time mapping is an effective time management technique that guides how you move from activity to activity. It involves creating a time map that serves as the basis for your work process.
The time map helps you to visualize your work schedule. With this tool, you can reduce procrastination, save time, optimize your schedule, and avoid decision fatigue.
Prioritization is a significant part of time mapping. But you’ve solved that problem with the Covey Time Management Matrix.
To start time mapping, you must evaluate how to spend time, and then create your to-do list.
After that, group your responsibilities into categories, then begin to set up time blocks for each task according to their priority level.
One important aspect of the time map is using color codes for different activities according to priority level and type. That way, you know what’s next on your to-do list by looking at the map.
Use the right tools
You need the right time management tools to help you stay on track.
Tools such as time trackers, project management apps, and to-do list programs will help you set up and monitor an optimized work schedule.
There are different productivity tools that you can consider. However, the right application for you must align with how you work, your budget, and specific needs.
Use Traqq time tracking software to monitor how much time employees spend on different platforms and evaluate their productivity.
Leverage your productive hours
There are hours in the day when you feel more energized to work. They’re called your productive or golden hours. Everyone has their golden hours, but those hours are only valuable when you know how to identify and use them.
You can use your time tracking tool to find your golden hours. Time tracking data can help you identify the hours when you are most productive. Once you find your golden hours, stop using them for non-important work. Make sure you reserve them for only the activities in the first and second quadrants.
Sharpen your delegating skills
Delegation is important if you want to focus your resources on more important work. As you know, some urgent to-dos may not be worth your time and may end up making you lose focus on things that are vital to meeting your goals.
Activities that you should delegate mainly fall in the third quadrant. They’re urgent but not important activities. That said, you can also delegate some important tasks if they’re too much for you to handle and complete in time.
So, you can’t delegate to just about anyone because they’re available. You have to make sure you’re delegating to people who are capable enough to execute the activity. You can follow the 70% rule of delegation to boost your delegating skills. According to the rule, you should delegate to someone who is capable of achieving a 70% success rate in completing the task.
Evaluate your productivity
Tracking your productivity helps you to understand your level of efficiency and how well you use time. With this information, you can make your schedule more perfect by assigning the right time blocks to the right activities.
For example, if you typically write 2,000 words for blog articles in 3 hours, you know how much to allocate to writing blog articles.
You can use a time tracking application to monitor how much time you spend on such activities, then determine your average.
Benefits of the Time Management Matrix
Let’s show you the advantages of using Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix.
- Get more things done in less time: You’ll be completing more work since you have a structured work schedule. The matrix also allows you to do more by showing you the work you can delegate. That way, you won’t be wasting your time on urgent tasks you once thought were important.
- Focus on important work: The time management technique helps you identify and eliminate time wasters from your work schedule. That way, you have more time to focus on actual work.
- Boost efficiency and output: You’re more efficient and productive when you concentrate on important tasks rather than urgent ones.
- Manage long-term goals better: As we’ve mentioned, completing important work takes you closer to your goals. And since Covey’s Time management method helps you focus your time and resources on important work, you’ll be locked on to your goals and aspirations.
- Improve work-life balance:COptimizing your work schedule means you’ll be taking more breaks and logging less overtime. That way, you’ll have ample time to spend with family and friends and fulfill other personal social obligations.
Conclusion
The time management matrix may seem challenging at first if you’re used to handling tasks as they come. But using the technique overtime will polish your work process and increase your productivity. Remember to use time tracking applications like Traqq to measure how you spend time and optimize your work schedule.
