We all have our set of goals and ambitions in life. We
strive to achieve those by all means. We have good intention and interest to
become great in life. We work towards that. We all want to have great health,
wealth and great relationship with those around us. We try by all means to
reach there. We all want to be energetic and enthusiastic in life. We move
towards that. In the process of striving to achieve this optimal life, we
sometime witness that the path is practically difficult to travel and isn’t easy
as in theory. What is the gap that sets us apart from theory to practice?
Before getting into the answer, it is important to
understand and to become aware of where we have positioned ourselves in life now.
We do multiple things in a fast paced life and sometime because of the speed,
there is a good chance that we might lose the sight of our progress in life. We
are so engaged in multiple activities and sometime, at a given time we don’t
even know what exactly we are doing. Some of us think that keeping ourselves
busy is quite good. When we have such a paradigm and our mind is set in such a direction
then there is a time, even when a free time is set in to us, we force ourselves
to become busy by voluntarily taking up some task to engage ourselves. Now
there is something to keep us occupied. Let
us stop from this mad rush, look back and do a kind of a review to get better
clarity for a well directed life goals.
Start of this New Year is such a right time to do this work
out as making resolutions are common in our sights during this period. We need
some tool to do this self exploration study and what better tool becomes more effective
than the one defined by Stephen Covey -‘Time management’ Tool. In reality, this
tool is to manage Self even though, this tool is called time management.
Your goal can be anything
for this New Year from losing weight, better career advancement, good health,
better financial wealth, good relationship, etc. What is more important is to understand what
this tool is all about and how to utilize it for your own benefit. This tool
gives you clarity of where you are now in your life and how to position and
prioritize your tasks for a well directed life.
Tool works on two parameters: ‘Important’ and ‘Urgent’. Any
event or task which you undertake can be categorized in one of the following
categories. 1. Urgent and important 2. Urgent but not important 3. Not urgent
but important and 4. Not urgent as well as not important. So, it is totally a
four quadrant matrix.
Quadrant I is a burnout zone. For example: deadline, crises
and pressing meeting. We will be stressed out when we stay here for a prolonged
period of our life. IV is more of a time wasting ‘Escape’ Zone. Activities like
watching TV, browsing net etc. We naturally come to IV when we have spent quite
a bit of time in I.
Quadrant III is Deception zone where certain interruptions
like a friend inviting you for a dinner. It is not necessarily important to encourage
every invitation that comes to us. Sometime, we should know how to say NO. This
is called deception because it appears to be urgent but in reality it might not
be.
II is the growth zone. It is all about your goals, purpose
and meaning to life, improving quality of work, life and relationship. It is an
empowerment zone. Activities carried out in this zone provide great control to our
life. In I & III, our life is being dedicated by other external forces/society
around us. IV activities are not only
time wasting but nonproductive to us.
Our mantra should be in such a way that we need to minimize
I & III, avoid IV and maximize II.
Now, take a tour, make an inventory of the list of
activities that we do, say for a week. Categorize the activities that we do in our
life and fill up in the four quadrants. Once this is done, we gain better visibility
with greater clarity of where exactly we spent time in life.
I & IV are opposite zones. I is more of stimulation and
IV is of a relaxation. Usually, a person jumps to IV to relax if it turns out
to be that the major amount of activities of him happened in Quadrant I.
II is the personal development growth quadrant that sets a direction
in life. More the time one spends in II, better the management of remaining
three quadrant activities. 25 %( 20%) of
our efforts yield 75 %( 80%) of the results .This is called 20 -80 principle.
For example, 80% of the traffic happens in 20% of the roads, 80% of country
wealth is in the hands of 20% of the population, etc.
“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things
which matter least “– Gothe.
So, let us spend time in quadrant II which matters the most.
Let us work less and achieve more for this New Year.
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