T I M E M A N A G E M E N T
reach your goals, so it’s necessary to define your goals before you
can determine your priorities. Defining your goals will force you to
think long term and consider life objectives involving family and
friends, community, and self-improvement, as well as work goals.
Because you don’t have enough time to complete all of your
tasks, prioritizing is essential. Large tasks will require more time
to complete, but that does not necessarily mean they should receive
priority, or be scheduled in your “prime time.” Small tasks can
and should be completed quickly, but they should be prioritized
using the same rules as the large tasks.
What rules? This is the point where you should look dispas-
sionately at your list of tasks and decide what is most important,
which require your attention, and which can be put off. You may be
inclined to put out fires first (the urgent tasks), particularly at work,
but depending on their importance, some can be left to burn out by
themselves. Figure 8.1, a grid made popular by Stephen Covey, may
be helpful in forcing you to ask two questions about each task:
Figure 8.1Ken Blanchard, in his book, The On-Time, On-Target Man-
ager: How a “Last-Minute Manager” Conquered Procrastination
developed a variation of this grid, shown in Figure 8.2.
IMPORTANT
URGENT
(A)IMPORTANT
NOT URGENT
(B)NOT IMPORTANT
URGENT
(C)NOT IMPORTANT
NOT URGENT
(D)