Is it urgent or important?



Let’s talk about the difference between URGENT and IMPORTANT.

Urgent refers to a time deadline.

Important means it is high value.

Every day things come across our path that are of low or high importance, and low and high urgency.

Grab a piece of paper and draw a big square. Now draw a line down and another across. You should now have 4 smaller squares.

Along the top, write High Value and Low Value. And along the left-hand side, write Deadline and No Deadline.

Basically, you want to always focus your time in the blocks on the left.

The top block is high value AND high urgency, which means it must get done NOW and it is VERY important. I like to think of client work in this block. Clients are why most of us are in business and there are usually deadlines attached. If you’ve ever bought a product of mine, you’ll know that you’re redirected to a page telling you I have a 24-hour turnaround time. Private 1:1 clients know that I’ve committed to ALWAYS respond within 24 – 48 hours.

The block below that is HIGH value but LOW urgency and it is here that you need to focus if you’re ever going to move towards your goals. Why?

Nobody is standing over my head saying “you need to work on an email teleseminar” but I know that if I want to reach my goal of running x number of live teleseminars this year, I need to MAKE TIME to do that.

And it’s the same for you.

Whether your goal is to improve your fitness levels, get your home organised or have 3 hours of free time every week, you’re going to have to put some work into that quadrant.

That’s if you want to reach your goals.

I don’t even like to bother with the other two quadrants but I know that’s going to drive some of you crazy so let me just give you some email examples –

Low value tasks with a deadline are things like “send this email to 10 people within the next hour”. They have absolutely no value and the deadline is usually imposed by other people. Most interruptions also fall into this block.

Low value tasks with no deadline are emails with jokes, funny pictures and the like. My suggestion is to get these out of your inbox permanently as they disrupt your focus and waste your time!

For the next two weeks, your challenge is to focus on the top two quadrants and only do tasks that fit there.

  • Bonus – really step it up by making sure that you definitely get AT LEAST one task in the “goals” quadrant done every day.

What’s your time worth?

We’ve all heard the saying, “time is money” and to a certain degree, that is true. However, today I want to challenge you by saying that time is MORE IMPORTANT than money.

Why?

Because you can always do something to make more money but you can never get time back. NEVER.

See where I’m going with this?

But what about your time?

Once you fritter away your time on unimportant things, you can never get that time back.

An email made its way around about a year ago about a man who gave his son two jars, one empty and one with marbles. There were enough marbles for the weeks he had left to live (assuming a man’s average mortality). He told his son to move one marble to the empty jar every Saturday so that he’d realise that he could never, ever get that time back.

Yes, the story is a bit hokey but it DOES have a point 😉

I’m a practical sort of person so I like to do an exercise with my clients that I’d like you to do with me too.

Divide your monthly salary by 21.67 (the number of days you work each month). If you’re self-employed, use your average earnings by the number of days you usually work.

That’s your daily rate.

Now take that number and divide it by 7.5 or the number of hours you work every day.

That’s your hourly rate.

Now, when you spend an hour surfing the internet, replying to chain letters, reading blogs when you should be working, VISUALISE yourself throwing that money in the bin.

If you’re like me, it’ll shock you and make you realise the value of your time.

This week I’m challenging you to calculate your hourly rate and next time you’re tempted to procrastinate or just mess around, STOP and ask yourself if it’s really worth it.

My guess is no.

Marcia Francois is a time management coach and speaker who inspires busy women to break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and take purposeful and focussed action so they have the time and freedom to live life to the full. Visit  http://purposefultimemanagement.com for your free Time Management Purpose Pack.

QOTW – what does purposeful living mean to you?

Today I have a question for you – what does purposeful living mean to you?

For me it means being conscious about how I spend my time, making sure that the activities I choose to do contribute towards my life goals and mission, and re-evaluating it all constantly to make the necessary changes.

So share – what does it mean for you?

P.S. Have you seen my new website?

There’s a Time Management Purpose Pack waiting for you 🙂

Purposeful time management

Hi all

Have you downloaded the new Time Management Purpose Pack yet?

You’ll find the 10 steps to purposeful time management and 8 useful forms to help you on your way.

It’s all free – my gift to you.

Go to http://PurposefulTimeManagement.com now.

And then, have a great weekend!

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