Prioritize tasks according to Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix below to help you decide what tasks to tackle and in what order. It is especially important to find time for Quadrant II tasks – those that are important in the long run but not urgent. We may tend to put off these activities in favor of those that are urgent so that we have a short-term focus only.
The ability to differentiate between urgent and important can improve productivity by:
- Increasing the focus on important issues
- Removing the fog created by “urgency”
- Force better planning of activities
- Reduce the number of disruptions
- Decrease the amount of time taken to accomplish tasks
The difference between urgent and important is that an urgent issue gives the impression that it ‘needs’ to be done, whereas an important issue needs to be done because it may have a significant effect in the longer term.
Criteria for prioritization can be grouped into 4 main categories:
- People
- Quality
- Efficiency
- Safety
Which takes precedence will be to a large extent dependent upon the situation. However, it can be taken as granted that all four categories will exhibit some influence on each decision regarding prioritization.
Sheryl Tuchman, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
http://tools2succeed.com/
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