CrossFit Athletic Group

"Never let the things that matter most be at the mercy of the things that matter least."

- Stephen Covey

Since December I have been trying to study up a bit on Stephen Covey, specifically on the way he lays out how to spend your time doing things that really move you in the direction you want. The quadrant above is a way that he organizes activities throughout daily life based on two categories: Urgency and Importance. (And yes, Murley pointed out that math nerds will be mad because 1 & 2 should be switched around, so whatever).

Quadrant 1 - Urgent and Important

There is a fire in your kitchen. You need a house to live safely and said fire is slowly burning the house away. You run to grab the fire extinguisher and do whatever you do with a fire extinguisher that makes the fire go away. This is both a matter of urgency and importance. These things come up and we are forced to act on them. Less serious examples could be deadlines at work or cramming for a test tomorrow.

Quadrant 2 - Important but not Urgent

You feel overwhelmed with all the things on your to-do list today, but you put all them to the side to go visit your grandma for an hour where you walk her around the house 3 times and then sit and talk about absolutely nothing in particular. Your grandma is fine; she did not fall or have a medical emergency, but you haven't seen her in a while and wanted to make that the priority. This quadrant, according to Covey, is the most important quadrant to plan because nothing in here contains a time stamp. We can just keep putting it off and putting it off in favor of other things and next thing you know a year has gone by and you haven't seen your grandma. These things don't act on us, we must act on them. Other activities in this area include practice/study for our craft, personal growth, exercise and fitness, quality sleep/recovery, developing relationships, building the ability of those around you, and planning ahead/reflecting.

Quadrant 3 - Urgent but not Important

You are at dinner with your family and your phone dings with an email from a coworker who can't remember the password to access some files she needs. The habits we practice at work during the day and the ding from the phone make this message seem like it needs to be dealt with right now (urgent), but is this really important? What would happen if, instead of interrupting dinner, you wait 20 more minutes and read the email once everyone is finished eating and the dishes are put away? Would the company fall under? If so, then this would be a Quadrant 1 activity. If not - which is more likely - then your coworker will just have to find a way to exist for another 20 minutes while you're moving the needle in your personal life. The urgency in this quadrant makes these activities seem important: The ding we get from an email or text, the tone someone is using when they ask us to do something for them, the grass that is growing a bit too long in the yard. But a calm mind can see the difference and understands to get to this stuff only when the important things are accounted for.

Quadrant 4 - not Urgent and not Important

This is what David Saporito calls "being a piece." This is sitting on the couch watching mindless tv shows like The Bachelor or Swamp People. This is playing 2k or listening to Rick Ross grunt like a caveman into a mic. This is conversing in celebrity gossip and laundry with Mama V and Mrs. Carey. The activities in this quadrant disconnect us from the important things. Sometimes this is needed and sometimes this gets in the way of moving yourself in the direction you want to go. Combining activities here with an activity in Quadrant 2 can help, such as taking time to watch The Bachelor with your mom instead of by yourself, but everyone needs their time to just be a piece. In my opinion, at least. The trick is setting some kind of restriction, like keeping your charger at the gym when you bring Pokemon X home for the night.

...........

Stephen Covey, and other coaches/teachers needed a lifetime to develop this kind of organized thinking, so there is no way we're going to read an article or look at a chart and fix ourselves like that. But I think it would be good to start making the attempt to categorize all the activities you do into one of these four categories. You don't need to write it down or anything, just try to categorize whatever it is you're doing at the time by answering the following questions: It is urgent? And is it important? Remember, Quadrant 1 is putting out fires, Quadrant 2 gets us where we need to go, Quadrant 3 is distractions, and Quadrant 4 is "being a piece."

There is no due date for the homework. I'd rather it be important.