Clients are often telling me they are overwhelmed with all the things we have to do. It’s like busyness these days is a badge of honour.
In discussing this with one of my clients recently, we identified that working through the urgent/importance matrix would be of value to her. We brainstormed all the things she does in her week – from meetings internally and externally, to attending to emails, to planning, writing documents, managing staff and more. You know all those things – you no doubt have them on your list of things too.
Covey’s urgent and important matrix is a simple and useful tool for helping to work through the mess. To pull the gems from the grit.
In essence, the magic happens when you focus on the things that are important and not urgent. This might be planning, strategising, relationship building, thinking (yes, making time to think!), professional and personal development. The more time you spend on these things, the less likely you are to end up in the crisis zone.
To do this focus on what’s important – you need to identify those things that you can ‘delegate’ (some calls, emails (cc’d emails are a great example), meetings, someone else’s problem and needs) and the things you can delete (trivia, ‘busy work’, some social media, time wasters).
What’s on your list today and this week? What can you delete? What can you delegate? And where should you really be focussing?
