The Time Management Matrix Explained
Time Management Matrix is one of the best management tools because it can help you organize yourself and your work in a more productive. Managing your time and prioritizing your tasks can be a very effective strategy in time management. It helps you to take a step back and have a bird’s eye view of what should be done and how important each task is.
Over the years the strategy of prioritizing your different tasks that needs to be done have evolved. We can now put those tasks in a framework which we call the time management matrix.
The time management matrix was created by Stephen Covey. It is an effective tool you can use to organize your different priorities. It helps to differentiate between the activities that are important and those that not so urgent.
The important activities will lead to you achieving your personal or professional goals. Your urgent activities are the ones that need to be taken care of immediately. The urgent activities sometimes of to deal with the achievement of someone else’s goals; it all varies.
At times we tend to focus on things that are urgent and sometimes the urgent things are not so important.
What makes the Stephen covey’s approach so special?
It’s simply because it creates time to focus on the important tasks before they often become urgent. So if you finish the important tasks first, you can open up a new stream of time for the less important work. This can increase your productivity overall and bring in a new form of balance in your life.
The time management matrix consists of four quadrants organized by urgency and importance. You can see it by looking at the diagram below.
The first quadrant is for the urgent and important tasks that need to be done now. Examples of this would be like projects that need to be done now before a short deadline.
The tasks in the second quadrant are important but are not really urgent. You don’t have to worry about rushing to do them. These tasks usually get more important as time goes on but for now it’s not.
The tasks that are in the third quadrant are not really important but can be done urgently. You can do them urgently when you have some left over time to just take them out of the way. These tasks can normally be for someone who you are doing a favor for and they want it now.
The fourth quadrant is for those tasks that doesn’t really have any value. These tasks can be done when you’re on a break from all the hard work done. You can also do these tasks when you’re just bored.
Managing your time in today’s age has become a skill. It’s more than just jotting down different tasks on paper and says what time you are going to do them.
That can be good, but at times some of those tasks are not so valuable at the moment. It would be time wasting to do the not so urgent task over the urgent ones that needs to be done now. As stated before, the time management matrix solves all that and helps you prioritize your different task. These tasks can stem from important and urgent to not-important and urgent. Overall it’s a great tool to use manage your time. It gives you a different view on separating the important task from the not so important ones.