The four time quadrants, and how to use them to boost your life satisfaction

In my last post I wrote about ways I was planning ahead to create a time buffer for myself, for more calm and peace in my life.

That same afternoon, my eighteen year old son called and when I shared with him what I was involved with, he commented, “You’re a busy lady, Mommy!”

While we live in a culture that respects people who can do more and more and more, and sees busyness as accomplishment, I don’t take pride in being busy.

I try to be as un-busy as I can be. My goal is to show up and be present in my life for myself and those around me, and to get the things done that I need to do, and to do it without rushing from here to there. I want to have a good bit of white space in my life, so I try to be intentional about what gets my time and what doesn’t.

I told my son the above, and added, “That’s the point of the four quadrants. I’ve told you about those, right?”

I was surprised when he wasn’t familiar with them, because this concept has been such a big part of how I organize and think about time for many years. (I included it in my ebook so if you’re read that, you’re familiar with this. If you want it and aren’t able to sign up for it because you’re already on my list, email me at avivahwerner@yahoo.com and I’ll get it to you.) I spent the next twenty five minutes of our shmooze explaining to him how it works and why it’s super beneficial to implement to whatever degree you can.

Time management isn’t about getting more done in less time (though it helps with that), but creating space to do what matters most to you. To do that, you firstly need to know what is important to you (that’s something to give real thought and time to determining), and then schedule accordingly.

There are four categories of time, called quadrants: 1) the urgent and important, 2) the important and not urgent, 3) the urgent and unimportant, and the non-urgent and non-important.

Quadrant 1 – things that are urgent and important. These are things that must be dealt with right now: deadlines, crisis management, emergencies, crying babies, the child that needs stitches, cleaning up the glass jar that just shattered on the floor. You’re never going to be able to eliminate this category of urgent things that must be dealt with right now, because life happens. But you can minimize the crises and the time you spend on them, by being proactive in quadrant 2.

Quadrant 2 – things that are not urgent but are important. Planning, skill building, preventative maintenance, exercise, eating well, spending time building your relationships, resting and renewal, managing your finances, investing in the behind the scenes of any venture – business/parenting/finances/health. Your quality of life comes from the second quadrant, but these are things we tend to put aside because we’re so busy and these things aren’t urgent – we’re too busy putting out fires to slow down and put our attention on these activities.

The thing is, the more time you spend in this category, the less urgency and crisis you’ll experience. This is how you create more time in your life.

This is what I was writing about in my last post. By planning ahead and taking steps to do things now, things that will need to be done at a later time, it takes away the urgency. When left to close to a deadline, they become pressing, with all of the stress associated with that.

If you put a mattress protector on your child’s bed, you’ve saved yourself the urgency of needing to wash the mattress if he has an accident. When you build your relationship with your child, the less likely he is to act out to get your attention. When you schedule payment of your bills, the less likely it is that you’ll have your gas or electricity shut off for non-payment. When you you eat well and exercise, you’re less likely to have a sudden health crisis that urgently needs to be taken care of.

Can you see how this applies in so many areas, big and small?

The million dollar question is, where do you get the time to spend in quadrant 2, when life is already overwhelmingly full?

The last two quadrants.

Quadrant 3: things that are urgent and not important. This is confusing because we conflate urgency and importance. When the phone rings, a text or WhatsApp message comes through, or someone knocks at the door, we feel we have to deal with it right away. It feels like it matters. And sometimes it does. But usually it doesn’t need our involvement at that moment, and sometimes it doesn’t need our involvement at all. These items can generally be delegated, delayed or outsourced.

Quadrant 4: things that are not urgent and not important. We turn to these activities because feel burned out and beaten up by life, and we want some distraction or downtime: social media browsing, gossiping, reading/internet surfing that has passed the point of productivity. We tell ourselves that we need to chill, but it’s not true relaxation.

True relaxation and renewing ourselves are important quadrant 2 activities. When we turn to quadrant 4 to relax, we not only aren’t renewed, but are more tired, anxious and depleted than when we began. These are the kind of activities we can eliminate without any loss of quality of life.

The more of these activities you cut down on, the more time you’ll have for quadrant 2 activities. The more you invest in quadrant 2, the more time you have.

Everyone has the same 24 hours in his day. But everyone has different goals for his life, and needs to allocate his life energy accordingly. When you spend your time on things that are your true priorities, your life satisfaction will go way up. When you spend your energy on things you ‘should’ do but that you don’t resonate with, you’ll feel burnt out and exhausted.

So going back to my first point – you need to get clear on what you want your life to be about, what makes it feel meaningful and satisfying, and then you can allocate your time accordingly.

Back to my post yesterday – the purpose of writing it wasn’t to showcase, “Look at me and how many things I’ve done ahead of time!” I wanted to show examples of how I make more time and have less stress in my life, by investing in quadrant 2 planning for the upcoming holidays.

Avivah

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