Lessons from EO Part 2 of 5: Covey’s Quadrant Prioritizing
February 3, 2009 by dr. lam
Most oftentimes we simply get lost with the tasks in front of us. We have an avalanche of things that need to be accomplished that we scatter over multiple post-it notes, scribble on the corner of a notebook page, and we feel overwhelmed by it all. By using a systematic prioritizing system created by the famous Stephen Covey, we can determine how we see our “to-do” list in a clarified and enlightened fashion.
Covey divided the things in front of us into four quadrants. Quadrant I items are both urgent and important. They are in short a crisis that must be addressed imminently to avert disaster. Hence, they are given priority #1. Quadrant II items are important but not urgent and represent what he terms “preparation”. Quadrant II’s represent our strategic vision for the future of what we should do but may not need to do today. Quadrant III items are urgent but are not so important in the larger scheme of things like checking your email and responding to various questions from your staff that need to be addressed. He calls this quadrant “interruptions”. Quadrant IV represents items that are not important and not urgent, which he terms “trivia”.
Obviously, priority #1 is to address and manage Quadrant I issues. However, we need to analyze our Quadrant I issues to determine how they went from Quadrant II to Quadrant I. What our goal should be is to make such an analysis so that we can more easily keep items in Quadrant II before they become Quadrant I issues. If we live our lives constantly in Quadrant I, something may be wrong. In short, Quadrant I items are “reactive” in nature and Quadrant II items are “proactive” in nature. Similary, if we have no Quadrant II items perhaps we are not sufficiently planning for the future and we should focus on defining Quadrant II items. If you are a business owner and can delegate effectively, you should try to move Quadrant III items over to a staff member to take care of it so that you can focus your priorities on Quadrant I and II items. Obviously, you must also recognize something as Quadrant IV so that you can properly ignore it and not give it Quadrant I and II priorities mistakenly.
When I am in Forum and we work on our presentations, we are trying to get the right balance of Quadrant I and II items discussed so that we are not always in a reactionary mode but can handle urgent and important problems when they arise. Using Covey’s 4 quadrants may help streamline your life if you find it currently chaotic and unplanned or reactionary in nature.
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2 Responses to “Lessons from EO Part 2 of 5: Covey’s Quadrant Prioritizing”
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I really like this way of prioritizing goals! I am putting this quadrant goal box to use right now. Thanks for sharing this with others!
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sml