There is a Chinese saying: Prioritize things.
Take a simple example:
I believe everyone is familiar with the idiom "prepare for a rainy day". It means that when it is not raining, the doors and windows of the house should be repaired first to prevent the rain when it rains.
Repairing the doors and windows of the house is a very important thing. It must be done sooner or later. It is not in a hurry when it is not raining, but it is absolutely urgent for rainy days. influences.
Many things in work and life are like a house to be repaired. If it is not planned and solved in advance, it is very likely that it will change from not urgent to urgent, and it will have a major and irreversible impact.
Because we need to make a plan, everything is prepared in advance. The purpose of making a plan is to complete those important but not urgent things in advance and efficiently and step by step.
has a four-quadrant rule in time management. The division of these four quadrants is conducive to our deep understanding and effective management of time.
The four-quadrant rule of time: The first quadrant: important and urgent The second quadrant: important but not urgent The third quadrant: not important and urgent , which needs to be done immediately. This type of matter has the urgency of time and the importance of influence, which cannot be avoided or delayed, and must be dealt with first and resolved first.
Quadrant 2: Important Not Urgent
Some things don't seem to be so urgent or time-critical, but they have great impact and great personal significance.
The third quadrant: not important but urgent.
Some things are urgent but not important. Events in this quadrant are very deceptive. Many people have misunderstandings and think that urgent things are important, but in fact they are not important. These unimportant events are often caused by It's urgent, and it takes up a lot of people's precious time.
The fourth quadrant: not important and not urgent
The events in this quadrant are mostly trivial chores, without time urgency, without any importance, and are basically used to pass the time. We can spice up our lives with affairs in this quadrant, but don't get caught up in it.
The four-quadrant classification method is available, but how to distinguish important from unimportant? Urgent or not urgent?
▌Important/Unimportant
Important or not is judged according to whether the matter has a positive and important impact on the individual.
Easy Efficiency Teacher Ye Wubin has provided us with a simple method, from the three aspects of happiness, meaning, and advantages, list the important things to you, if the three circles intersect to find out your success factor, it can help you even more Realize your life dreams.
▌Urgent/Non-urgent
Considering the time dimension, the task deadline is used as the standard to distinguish between urgent and not urgent.
Regarding urgent and not urgent, it is recommended to divide the time into two weeks:
. Events within two weeks are urgent events into the flexible list. Whether it is an event in the calendar or an event in the flexible list, as long as it is determined to be done in the last two weeks, we will optimize and refine them, and find the first step of action for each event according to the importance and urgency.
. Events over two weeks are not urgent events.
We can just record them roughly, and we don’t need to elaborate their specific arrangements. After the important and urgent matters within two weeks are completed, we will focus on those that are not urgent. . Such as "projects" to be completed in recent months; short-term goals; career plans; long-term mission and vision.
After knowing the four-quadrant classification, it is more important to know how to plan and take action in response to the four-quadrant matters.
Mr. Ye Wubin provided Action 4D principles :
Do Execution:
Those important and urgent matters that cannot be avoided, do not hesitate to do it right away! When you're done, focus on the important but non-urgent events and think about how to improve.
Delay Delay:
put the important events that are not urgent or have not been considered temporarily on hold to postpone the execution time; once there are no important events, be sure to take time to pay attention to these delayed events.
Delegate Delegate:
Learn to authorize and cooperate, and try to assign things that can be delegated to people who are more suitable for it.
Delete:
deletes unrelated, unimportant and meaningless things from its own records and does not execute them.
4D principles and the relationship between the four quadrants:
The first quadrant: important and urgent—Do (do)
The second quadrant: important but not urgent—Delay (delay)
The third quadrant: not important and urgent—Delegate (delegate)
The fourth quadrant: Not Important Not Urgent—Delete (delete)
Quadrant 1: Important Urgent
Do it now!
Things in the first quadrant are the source of stress and crisis, and must be done immediately! Otherwise the consequences are very serious. This quadrant of
contains very important and urgent matters. These matters cannot be avoided and cannot be delayed. They must be dealt with first. The stress in our life and work mainly comes from the tasks in the first quadrant, and most of the tasks in the first quadrant come from the first quadrant. Transactions that are not well handled in the two quadrants.
For example, the important and not very urgent matters in the second quadrant, because we did not break down the tasks, did not plan to deal with these matters, over time, the urgency gradually increased, and then transitioned to important and urgent matters.
Quadrant 1 Strategy: The Two Minute Principle
Reduce Quadrant 1 (Important Urgent)There is a two-minute principle here: If anything takes less than two minutes, do it right away.
"Two minutes" is just a symbolic word. The core idea of this principle is: if you do something now, it will save you more time than if you go back and do it later, then you should do it as soon as possible.
may seem like a no-brainer, but most of the time we still choose to procrastinate. For example: when you need to ask for leave, you only need to call the leader or send a WeChat message. This time does not take 2 minutes at all, but we often delay it until the last minute to implement it.
Quadrant II: Important Not Urgent
Therefore, things in the second quadrant should be done in a planned and planned time, taking precautions, combining the actual situation, splitting tasks, making plans according to the severity of the tasks, and continuing to advance step by step to avoid entering the first quadrant.
Second quadrant strategy: The 28 rule
Investing in the second quadrant (important but not urgent)The 28 rule (also called Paredo's Law) was discovered by Italian economist Paredo in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He believes that in any group of things, the most important only accounts for a small part, about 20%, and the remaining 80%, although the majority, is secondary, so it is also called the law of 28.
So we should focus on the important 20% that have a positive impact on our lives.
Things in the second quadrant are important but not urgent, such as determining a long-term career plan, personal mission, life vision, etc. There is sufficient time to prepare and implement the plan.It can be seen that the investment in the second quadrant, its return is the largest.
Third quadrant: not important Urgent
Authorization or euphemistic rejection (Delegate!)
Things in the third quadrant, we should recognize that it is the source of our busyness and blindness. This part of the task of
is deceptive to a certain extent. Different people have different views on things, and their importance is also different. For example, some things cannot be regarded as important to us, but only because other people are more urgent, prompting us to think they are very important. Important, it will take up a lot of our precious time.
For things in this quadrant, it is best to authorize others to do them, or reduce investment in such matters by euphemistically refusing.
Third quadrant strategy: Monkey rule
Get out of the third quadrant (not important and urgent)Economist William Oncken once put forward a theory called "monkey on his back".
Professor Weng Ken once discovered that when he was busy working overtime, his subordinates were playing golf leisurely. This made him suddenly realize that a very important reason for the lack of time for supervisors is that they did not do a good job in delegating responsibilities, and they recruited too much work that should have been done by subordinates to themselves, so that they were always chasing after work progress. Professor Onken likens those jobs to "monkeys" that are alive and kicking at any time, and calls his unique theory of time management "the art of monkey management".
So we should apply the monkey rule to get out of the third quadrant.
The third quadrant, not important and urgent, these things are not important to you, but they are urgent to others. Are you happy to do things that are not your own responsibilities efficiently? How is your own business doing?
Please subtly transfer the monkey that is not on your back to someone else, or return it to the person who gave you the monkey.
Quadrant 4: Not Important Not Urgent When you are tired, you can adjust your mind and body by doing things that are not important and not urgent, but you can't put too much energy in this quadrant, otherwise it will be a waste of life.
So try not to do things in the fourth quadrant!
Fourth Quadrant Strategy: Learn to Say No!
rejects the fourth quadrant (not important and not urgent)"Eat the frog" mentioned: in the dictionary of time management, there is a most powerful word - "no".
You can politely say "no" to others as long as there is no misunderstanding between the parties, and you must say it clearly and clearly.
Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, once shared the secret of his success: "The secret of success is very simple. I would say no to things that don't matter right now."
"Say no" is divided into two aspects, one is to say no to others, the other is to say no to yourself.
Say no to things that are not a high priority in your life and time. You have to give up. Starting a new job means letting go of another.
Say no to others, you can refuse others gracefully, but you must be firm and avoid going against your will.
Four-quadrant rule, an important concept is that the main energy and time should be focused on dealing with those important but not urgent tasks, so that we can plan ahead and prevent problems before they happen.
is also the high-energy important thing theory proposed by Mr. Ye Wubin in the nine-paragraph method of time management!
In people's daily work, there are often opportunities to plan and complete a thing well, but often do not do it in time, resulting in a decline in the quality of work over time. Therefore, it is necessary to focus the main energy on matters in this "quadrant" that are important but not urgent.
You can create the life you want and be 16 times more effective only by using the best quality time, space and vigorous energy and prioritizing things that have a positive impact on your life.
