QUIT PLAYING WITH YOUR PHONE AND SAY HELLO TO YOUR REAL PRIORITIES.
Setting priorities is a crucial activity for business folks.  You have the “To Do” list, so now what do you do with it?

Many years of working with hundreds of business coaching clients has shown me that the best approach is that described by Stephen Covey in his book First Things First.  Covey has us look at each task and decide which of four quadrants – degrees of  “Urgency and Importance” – it might belong to.  The quadrants are:
• Urgent and Important –  This type of task is usually obvious – it’s what many entrepreneurs spend their lives on. It includes crises, deadlines and meetings – stuff that we need to do now.
• Important and Not Urgent – These tasks relate to things like planning, enabling tasks, professional development, personal renewal, and relationship building. If we don’t pay attention to these tasks our business – and our life – will suffer.
• Urgent and Not Important – Often a difficult task to spot. This kind of task may be important… to someone else. People working in large organizations are familiar with this category. Many of the emails and texts we contend with fall into this category; maybe some of the meetings we attend, too.
• Not Urgent and Not Important – These “tasks” consist of time-wasting activities like playing computer games and watching bad TV. Unless we filter carefully, a great deal of email can also fall into this quadrant (delete, delete…).

We REALLY need to be vigilant in identifying tasks belonging in Quadrant 3 – Urgent and Not Important.  This category is the trickster for many of us.  For example, social media presents a whole new world of potential in this category.  Yes, social media can be helpful in building relationships, but consider the subtle sense of urgency that arises in dealing with Twitter, Facebook etc.  Unless we hurry, the interesting bits will disappear off the bottom of the page.  “Oh, and here is a new entry, that’s interesting, oh, and another one – I have to respond to that…”

Before we know it, an hour has gone by and we still haven’t addressed the task we had scheduled. We got caught in Quadrant 3 – Urgent & Not Important. Social media can be a great benefit – or it can provide an endless flow of entertaining, unimportant (but seemingly urgent) stuff.

The latest technological tools easily seduce us into Quadrant 3.  Have you been at a lunch when your companion decides to answer their cell phone or send a text message?  What does that tell you?  That the call or message is more important than their conversation with you.  Suppose they do this more than once – will you ever have lunch with them again?  I have even seen people stop speaking in a meeting in order to answer their phone while the entire room rolls their eyes. The message is loud and clear: their time is worth more than yours and everybody else’s, right?  Here we see the “tyranny of the urgent” playing out in others.  So beware of Urgent & Not Important.  It can ruin your most important relationships.

Dealing with what falls in Quadrant 1 (Urgent and Important) straight away is always the top priority. If it’s not, we jeopardize our business.  But what about number two?  Important and Not Urgent tasks are next in line.

Why? 
Because the closer attention we pay to this category, the fewer crises and the less stress we have to deal with.
Let me re-emphasize that. The higher we prioritize the Important & Not Urgent tasks, the less stress and crises we’ll encounter. This is the category that contains tasks that too often get shoved aside, like filling the sales funnel by making “those” calls, planning the hire of an assistant, marketing that new event, booking the next vacation, and orchestrating quality time with the spouse & children.  The more we implement these tasks the better it is for our business, and our life.

How to be sure to prioritize tasks well? 
There are four things I suggest you do:
• Using the parameters of Quadrants 1-4, go through your “To Do” list and decide which task belongs in which category.
• Cross out all the Quadrant 3 & 4 stuff (these quadrants may be item-heavy if you’ve really examined your list honestly)
• Now schedule all those Quadrant 2 tasks and do not give up that time to other things.
• Get into the habit of doing the Quadrant 1– Urgent and Important tasks as soon as possible.

I can’t emphasize how important the third point is.  If you don’t schedule the tasks that are Important but Not Urgent, they won’t get done. If you procrastinate these tasks, they’ll move into category number one – and you’ll have another crisis on your hands that could have been avoided.

Follow this process weekly and you will reduce stress, make your business more successful, find a better life-work balance and keep your priorities where they need to be.

Submitted by Geoff Crinean of Business Insight Coaching & Consulting
and of the Vetali Training Centre. Geoff can be reached at geoff@busines-insight.biz