How do we go about actually putting first things first? In Habit 3 of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the author lays out the key activities of Quadrant II organization. These are:
- Identifying Roles
- Selecting Goals
- Scheduling
- Daily Adapting
Roles
The roles we are identifying are our roles at various times. We have a role at work, at home, and in organizations and groups outside of work. For example, some of my roles are: individual, team lead, aunt, Secretary of the local alumni chapter of Tau Beta Pi, and VP Education of the local Toastmasters club.
Goals
Covey suggests we should think of two or three goals for each role for the week ahead. These goals are the results we want to accomplish during the week. If you have long-term goals (maybe quarterly or annual goals), then these goals would support the long-term goals.
Scheduling
Once you have your roles and goals identified, then you schedule time in your calendar in the coming week. Covey suggests putting activities in specific time slots on the calendar.
What gets scheduled gets done.
Michael Hyatt
Daily Adapting
Life happens. Unexpected events come up. We need to deal with what we didn’t plan for. Covey suggests that each morning we review our scheduled activities and adapt as needed. We may need to put some gen 3 prioritization in place on the activities for the day so the most valued activities get accomplished.
How I actually use these concepts
I don’t follow the advice in the book exactly. I do have some idea what Q2 activities I’m doing during the week, but I make the most use of the ideas here on the weekend. Early on Saturday morning I make my list of roles, and then what I want to do for each role. Sometimes I choose not to do anything for a role that weekend, but many times there is an activity that makes sense that I list. For example:
You may have noticed I left out team lead. Because I do this on the weekend, I usually don’t have many commitments for work.
Sometimes I have specific goals in mind and sometimes I am listing activities to support what I value. For example, I have a goal of publishing a blog post every week. The ‘edit and publish blog post’ activity clearly supports that goal. I value being involved with my nieces as they grow up. Prepping for my niece’s birthday dinner supports that value.
Here’s where I veer off even further. I don’t put my activities on an actual calendar, I just leave them in a list. I will prioritize them, however, and do my best to go through the list in priority order. I think I do this because I really like checklists and unless I have a lot of specific events to attend I have a bit of freedom during the day on when to work on what. There’s a certain satisfaction in crossing an item off the list 🙂 .
I do find the list of roles and activities helpful, even if I’m not following the recommendations precisely. It reminds me what is really important. (I’ll update you in a future post if I find a better approach.)
Supplemental approach
I agree with the statement of what gets scheduled gets done. I also find what is habitual gets done too. Value exercise? Make it a habit. Value learning? Make it a habit. (You get the picture.) We talked about the importance of habits in a previous post.
I find having a morning routine helps me with “scheduling” things I value without having to actually schedule anything. My morning routine has changed over the years, but I always have found that I can get the day started pretty well on auto-pilot.
I get up, I feed the cat (he demands it really, so this part of the routine I have little say in), then I listen to a 5 minute inspirational podcast while I drink a big glass of water with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Right there I’ve addressed values around keeping a positive outlook (with the podcast), and staying healthy (with the water and lemon juice). Oh, and I’m being a good pet owner too 🙂 . These activities happen every day and I don’t even think about it, I just do them automatically.
For continuous learning I use the time I commute to work to listen to podcasts. Sure, I’m not up to date on the latest music and in-depth news coverage, but for me that’s ok.
How much time do you need to spend in Quadrant II to be a Q2 Leader?
My thought is that if you are spending any intentional time in Quadrant II, you’re a Q2 Leader. Reading this blog, reflecting on your week, learning something new are all Quadrant II activities.
Even if you don’t have a lot of time to spend on these activities, if you are consistent you’ll see a compounding effect in the future. A lot of authors talk about this, and one of them is Jeff Olson in the book The Slight Edge. Small efforts done consistently over time add up to big results, even when you don’t see a lot of change right away. The classic example is that if you have a penny at the start of a month, and you double what you have each day, at first you won’t see much change. $0.01, $0.02, $0.04, $0.08. But you know where we’re going…at the end of the first week you’ll have 64 cents. Whoopee. But at the end of a month, 2^30 is over $10million! That’s the power of compounding. So keep making consistent effort in putting first things first, even if you’re not seeing the benefit right away. (I get it, we’re probably not going to double our results each day, but the point is consistent effort over time, even if that effort is small, will compound. Although you may not see results right away, be patient, because one day you’ll realize just how valuable your investment has been.)
tl;dr
Putting first things first starts with identifying our roles, selecting goals for the week that reflect our values and longer term goals, scheduling those goal activities, and then adapting as needed daily. Building habits around your Quadrant II activities can also help you put first things first. Consistent effort, even if the effort is small, will compound over time and bring big benefits.
engineer your life
- Do the exercise where you identify your roles, and values/goals, and what you want to accomplish for the week. Play with scheduling and creating habits to see what works best for you in order to put first things first.
- Turns out lots of successful people have set morning routines. Check out interviews at the mymorningroutine website for some inspiration.