Academic Leadership: Fundamental Building Blocks
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For example, an Academic Coordinator may need to spend a lot of time responding
to student enquiries about enrolment or working with support staff or new professional
staff on various program-related activities. This can be a Quadrant 1 activity if the
Academic Coordinator is always caught off guard when it is time to organise orientation
activities for students or write the annual program report. If this is the case, there is
always a mad panic to get everyone on board and get the task completed. However,
time spent earlier developing answers to FAQs about enrolment that the Academic
Coordinator (or anyone for that matter) can cut and paste into an email to a student, or
which can go online, will ensure that this activity is a Quadrant 2 rather than a Quadrant
1 activity. By focusing on Quadrant 2, and setting up a process in advance, the
Academic Coordinator avoids the stress and rushes of Quadrant 1, saves time and
therefore has more time and energy to spend on other areas.
Quadrant 3 is urgent but not important activities. These should be planned for times
of the day when you have some free time, between a Quadrant 2 activity, or during parts
of the day where you are less productive. Setting up a time each day that fits your
productivity patterns is a good strategy for managing Quadrant 3 activities. For example,
checking email first thing in the morning, after lunch and again at the end of the day and
closing it down at other times, can be an effective way to ensure that the time you
allocate to Quadrant 2 or 3 work is not taken up by Quadrant 4 work.
Quadrant 4 activities basically should be delegated if possible. They are not the
focus of your peak productivity times and are things which you might do when you have
a few spare moments between other quadrant activities or when you perhaps need a
break from the more taxing activities in the other quadrants.
Managing email is a very important and an increasingly difficult task. Developing
strategies that ensure that you do not spend your entire day responding to relatively
trivial email messages from students and staff is very important if you are to be fully
productive and stay focused on Quadrant 2 activities. Sorting email into one of the 4
Quadrants is a strategy that works for some people. Setting up automatic replies
directing student inquiries to an FAQ website has also been effective for some people.
Balancing the competing demands on your time in a digital age is becoming increasingly
difficult. Managing email so that it does not overtake your work, making you totally
reactive rather than proactive, is a very important skill and worth spending some time
and effort on. On its own, email can see you working constantly and entirely in
Quadrants 1, 3 and 4, rather than in Quadrant 2. You may want to refer to Section 8.1,
for information on the TRAF system for managing emails, and for further information on
managing electronic communication.
