How to Utilize the Long Game to Reach Your Goals
When you think about it, time and attention are our only real currencies. We can always earn back the money that we spend, but we can never garner more time or split our attention without sacrificing something else, which is why it is crucial to leverage your time appropriately when pursuing your goals.
However, this is much easier said than done. Most people are bombarded with distractions or otherwise buried under countless tasks that make it a challenge to stay committed to their goals. But, it is possible to reach your goals despite all of the persistent tasks of daily life. A proven method of getting organized and staying on track to achieve goals is a time management matrix made famous by Stephen Covey. Simply put, the matrix helps you prioritize your to-do lists in a way that ensures you meet your obligations without sacrificing progress on your longer-term goals.
Every item on your to-do list fits into one of four categories:
Important and urgent – these are things that must be done to serve your work or your life. They are usually time-sensitive or involve hard deadlines. Completing these tasks won’t necessarily push you toward your goals, but not doing them would cause negative consequences.
Important but not urgent – this is the sweet spot, where you plan your goals and take steps to achieve them. Tasks in this quadrant can be things like strategizing, relationship building, exercise, education, and other things that can get you closer to your goals.
Urgent but not important – things that appear immediate but are unimportant fit into this category. Things like interruptions live here, as well as things that you may be able to delegate and eliminate so you can focus more on the items in the previous category.
Not urgent and not important – tasks and activities that do not get you closer to your goals fit into this category. They can be things like watching endless hours of television or hours of purposeless internet browsing. While everyone needs regular downtime, when done to excess, it leads to time spent with little to no value in return.
Putting it all together: the long game
High-level productivity and growth occur when you can spend most of your time handling tasks in the first two categories. But how to do that? Here are some suggestions:
Schedule your downtime – everyone needs and deserves time to unwind, but unless you establish boundaries by scheduling it, it can quickly turn into too much of a good thing.
Delegate urgent and but not important tasks – eliminate interruptions by delegating someone to handle critical but non-important tasks that tend to pop up throughout the workday.
Use the quadrant system to break down long term goals into milestones – putting even small steps toward your goals in the second category can provide positive reinforcement that may ripple throughout your organization.
Learning how to spend as much time as possible handling tasks in the first two categories takes a great deal of practice. Over time, most people will come up with ways to customize how they approach their to-do lists, such as maintaining different, color-coded calendars, and the like. The key is to keep at it and to reassess regularly to ensure that not only are your urgent but not important tasks appropriately delegated but that you are making consistent progress toward your goals.
Could you use some guidance in learning how to best leverage your time in pursuit of your long-term goals? Contact Leadership Delta today – we can help you build a time management matrix that works for you and your organization for a brighter future.