Urgent/Important Matrix

Great time management means being effective as well as efficient. Managing time effectively, and achieving the things that you want to achieve, means spending your time on things that are important and not just urgent. To do this, and to minimize the stress of having too many tight deadlines, you need to distinguish clearly between what is urgent and what is important

• Important activities have an outcome that leads to the achievement of your goals.


• Urgent activities demand immediate attention, and are usually associated with the achievement of someone else’s goals, or with an uncomfortable problem or situation that needs to be resolved.

Urgent activities are often the ones we concentrate on. These are the “squeaky wheels that get the grease.” They demand attention because the consequences of not dealing with them are immediate.

The Urgent/Important Matrix is a useful tool for thinking about this.

The Urgent/Important Quadrant is called the Quadrant of Necessity. These are tasks and activities that have to be completed on the home and work front. However, there may be other options for completing these tasks. Many time-crunched couples choose to outsource routine tasks such as grocery shopping, house cleaning and garden maintenance in order to buy themselves time for the other more important quadrants.

The Urgent/Not Important Quadrant is called the Quadrant of Deception. We feel like we are being productive, but in reality this is “busy work.” In today’s society, responding to the pressure of time, most of us develop, according to Stephen Covey, the "Urgency Habit.” We are constantly running at 100 miles an hour, not necessarily stopping to question the importance of the things we are doing. The telephone must be one of the greatest opportunities to use the urgency habit. It rings and what do we want to do? Of course, answer it!! Even if we are eating dinner at the time!

The Important/Not Urgent Quadrant, the Quadrant of Quality Time, is often the quadrant that encompasses our leisure time with our partner. After all, our partner is always there, but this work project is critical isn’t it? We tend to put this leisure time on the “back burner” to revisit at a later time. Unfortunately this often creates problems. Either our marriage breaks down, or we get sick from overwork, or we forget even how to enjoy leisure time. Our urgency habit destroys our ability to just interact and “be” with our partner. Remember, although this goes at odds with our culture, it is OK to take quiet time to renew. The body needs passive relaxation, other than sleep, to recover and regroup.Types of tasks or activities in this quadrant include leisurely dinners without interruption, long vacations, long-range planning and couples retreats.

The Not Urgent/Not Important Quadrant, called the Quadrant of Waste, involves tasks and activities that do not need to be done. It includes such things as surfing the web, excessive TV watching, and excessive playing of video games, etc. Here, there can often be a fine line between waste and renewal.

Questions that have to ask ourself for each Quadrant

Quadrant of Necessity:
To what extent are you in agreement with the tasks listed in this quadrant? Which of these tasks could you accomplish more effectively or delegate?

Quadrant of Deception:
To what extent do you each of you run on the urgency habit? What can you do to reduce your propensity for running on adrenaline?

Quadrant of Quality Time:
How can you ensure you allocate time for the Important/Not Urgent Quadrant, for quality time? What tasks or activities that fit in this quadrant will you begin this week? This month? This quarter?

Quadrant of Waste:
What tasks or activities will you try to eliminate from the Not Urgent/Not Important Quadrant?

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