Thinking vs. Doing: Time Management for the YES! Leader

President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “What is urgent is seldom important, and what is important is seldom urgent.” This seemingly simple observation has given rise to a time management model (often called the Eisenhower Model) that has proven useful precisely because of its simplicity.

You can apply the model by looking at any task and rating it according to how urgent it is and how important it is. As you can probably tell by now, the combination of these two factors gives rise to a quadrant model, as follows:

1 - Urgent/Important: These are tasks you can’t ignore and which must be done right away. These often take the form of unanticipated problems, immediate requests from someone in authority, or tasks you’ve left to the last minute due to your own procrastination.

Clearly, these are tasks that must be done – but, as noted below, the more you focus on long-term planning and priority-setting, the more you’ll be able to reduce the volume of these firefighting tasks.

2 - Urgent/Not Important: Frequently these are “squeaky wheel” tasks that you think you can’t ignore because they’re right in your face, demanding attention. The most common example is interruptions – someone stops by your desk to discuss something that doesn’t really need to be disposed of now, but you feel you have to do something with it in order to placate the person standing before you. In addition, these days technology has added to the variations of interruptions you can experience – texts, instant messages, emails with little red exclamation points. Beyond interruptions, though, this category can also include minor tasks you won’t relinquish because you think nobody else can do them better – and so you attend to all the little details right now to avoid the discomfort of leaving loose ends.

Strategies for dealing with this quadrant include: (1) Learning to quit taking on more than you can handle, which often means being able to say a respectful “no,” and (2) Learning to delegate and ask others for help

3 - Not Urgent/Not Important: This is the “time waster” category – distractions, mindless activities, recreational pursuits that can get in the way of more important tasks. Again, technology has enabled a myriad of new ways to let you fritter away your days until you say “Where did the time go?”

Often your best strategy here is to first make yourself aware of how much time you're actually spending on these tasks and then (as shown in Quadrant 4 below) being clear about your long-term goals so you can assess the true cost of your time-wasting activities.

4 - Not Urgent/Important: This is the high-gain category – the quadrant that involves reflecting on your life, determining what matters most to you, and setting a vision for the long term. Here is where you can create the beacon that draws you forward and keeps you from getting thrown off course by the temptations of the other three categories. But since this quadrant involves investing time in tasks (such as reflecting, planning, and building relationships) that might not involve immediate payoff (i.e., are not urgent), it’s easy to get diverted from this quadrant into reactive mode (Quadrants 1 and 2) or let your mind wander where it will (Quadrant 3). The challenge, then, is to create positive habits that will remind you to take active steps to focus on this quadrant every day (see the link to the Marshall Goldsmith article, below).

In addition to the strategies mentioned above, you may find that the more you focus on Quadrant 4, the less you’ll find yourself mired in the other three quadrants.

REFLECTIONS FOR THE YES! LEADER

Another Dwight Eisenhower quote comes into play here as well: “Plans are useless, but planning is essential.” In other words, the value in analysis and planning comes, not so much from the hard-copy output, but from the mental preparation you do while sifting through the possibilities and considering all the contingencies. Similarly, the world of improvisational theater teaches us that an improv performer practices his craft, not to create funny lines or other “schtick,” but to prepare his mind to deal in the moment with onstage incongruities, whatever they might be.

I mention all this because the Eisenhower Model of time management can itself carry an incongruity, namely: Isn’t Quadrant 4 time by definition “wasteful” time (Quadrant 3), that is, if you aren’t engaged in immediately producing an output, aren’t you frittering time away?

Think of it – how many of us have been told that time spent in thinking, analyzing, reflecting, sketching, browsing, playing, etc., is “unproductive” time? (And how many of us have been called “lazy” as a result?)

I’m not sure there’s an exact formula to be applied, but, as with anything having to do with resolving incongruities, I think there’s a balance to be continually struck between two extremes. Sure, on one hand, you can stay in your head and reflect on the great complexities of life, to the point where you never really get out and do anything. On the other hand, though, you can become so concerned with always being “productive” that you give short shrift to the value of just letting your mind drift where it will. In fact, it’s essential for the mind to take a periodic excursion from the immediate issues and tasks at hand in order to experience those “Aha!” moments of creative insight.

As a YES! Leader, are you:

·         Structuring each day to include unstructured time for reflecting on the big, long-term concerns that really matter to you?

·         Holding yourself accountable for taking regular action – even small steps – to attend to those long-term concerns?

·         Using your unstructured time either as a respite or as mental preparation – and not as avoidance?

·         Striking the proper balance between time spent “doing” and time spent “thinking” so that each informs the other?

(Also see Marshall Goldsmith’s article Ask Questions Daily for a simple yet powerful way to keep your Quadrant 4 priorities uppermost in your mind every day.)