A personal new year commitment to "better prioritise" has prompted me to reflect on the Time Management Matrix, originally proposed by former US President Eisenhower and more recently popularised in Covey's seminal work "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People".
For those who are not familiar or need some reminding, the matrix explores the relationship between the urgency and importance of tasks/activities and as such helps to organise and prioritise multiple tasks. Broadly speaking, tasks will generally fit into one of the 4 matrix quadrants, as shown in the diagram below:
Perhaps not surprisingly, most of us tend to focus on the urgent tasks, and that's fair enough, particularly if those tasks are also important (e.g. returning customer calls, servicing clients, dealing with immediate staff issues). But all too often we also find ourselves dragged into stuff that someone else might consider to be urgent, but in actual fact is not all that important to our goals (e.g. requests from staff to help with something minor, re-stocking office supplies).
These urgent but not so important items can become a real drain on time and energy, taking us away from the important though not urgent activities that can really make a difference (e.g. developing and reviewing a business plan, strategically positioning the business for future opportunities).
Reflecting again on Covey's matrix got me thinking about how businesses and organisations tend to manage their people, and what it means for their individual and collective success. Sure, there's a lot of HR activity that is both urgent and important (addressing immediate staff performance issues and recruiting staff to fill pending and recent vacancies, for example), and most businesses manage these items pretty well. What also occurred to me though is that there are a number of HR activities that fit into the important but not urgent quadrant and as a result often don't get the time and attention they deserve.
As luck would have it, it's often these not urgent but important activities that can add the most value to the business, that make the difference between your business and your competitors, that build future security and profitability. Consider for example the following HR-related functions, drawn from our 8 Elements to Success Through People© model:
A similar case could I suggest be made to encourage a focus on the remaining components of the 8 Elements to Success through People(c) Model. Think about your own business/organisation/team: while it may not be critically urgent, it's likely to be important for your future success to also prioritise and focus on:
So what about you, and your business? Are you spending your time wisely, not just on the urgent activities, but also those important but perhaps non-urgent activities that have real potential to transform your business and ensure future success?
The Time Management Matrix is part of our Short N Sharp Training session "Where'd It Go? Time Management" - check out www.shortnsharptraining.com.au.