The former US president Eisenhower said he would classify all of his many tasks into 4 simple categories:
First, the ones that are urgent AND important.
- Example: you are a project manager and get to know that your client found a serious quality issue in your last delivery and is considering cancelling the project. This is obviously a situation where you would switch into firefighting mode and try to solve the problem immediately.
Then second, there are tasks that are urgent but NOT really important.
- Example: one of your team members got sick and somebody needs to cancel his 9 AM meeting with the client. These are potentially tasks that you may delegate to somebody else.
And for sure, there are also topics that are neither urgent nor important
- Example: busywork like attending status meetings for the project that you left last month. These are obviously things where no time at all should be spent. Send them to the wastebasket.
Now there is also an interesting category of tasks in quadrant 4. These tasks are NOT urgent BUT still important. At first that sounds like a contradiction…
- Example: Sarah works as a sales manager. She’s supposed to create a concept to increase the business volume with her key customers in the next quarter. This is a crucial task, maybe the most important for the next few weeks – but it is not urgent.
- Working on such tasks in quadrant 4 is often very challenging because of the many so-called “more urgent” tasks that get higher priority and more time day after day. The month is over, and Sarah still hasn’t come up with her new concept…
Eisenhower was an expert in classifying his duties and in treating them according to this schema, which is therefore also known as the “Eisenhower matrix”. Here is another famous Eisenhower quote:
The important problems are never urgent.
How can you make sure to spend the appropriate amount of time on your important tasks? And how can you find out what tasks are important in the first place?
The main strategy here is that quadrant 4 tasks need to be scheduled – this means that you need to allocate and block time upfront. This is not easy, but if you get this right, it will make a huge difference for your effectiveness and productivity at work.
You can learn more about this topic in the new online course Time Management and Productivity with Microsoft Outlook. This course will systematically guide you through all major topics and includes many small exercises that make it easy to apply and transfer what you learn. YouTube is great – however, this course teaches you the essentials in a more effective and actionable way for a better time-to-result ratio.
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This course is for you…
- If you often have more to do than what fits into a day – and therefore need to split your time across several tasks
- If you want to get to the next productivity level with limited time investment – more results with less stress.
- If you are already using Microsoft Outlook for emails, but don’t utilize the calendar and planning functionality much. Be assured, a lot more is possible!
After this course…
- You will start the following days with your first weekly plan
- You will focus your energy more effectively on your key goals
- You will plan and track your tasks more systematically and with less effort
How is the course structured?
- We start with a few basic principles:
– How to derive your personal goals and key tasks
– Pareto- and Eisenhower principles, prioritization and daily performance curve
– Why todo lists are not really useful for time management - Then, I introduce you to the method that most successful people use: work based on a calendar plan. With a few systematic steps, we’ll convert your current todo list into such a plan. You’ll see it can be done in minutes.
- As a tool for the practical application, we’ll use Microsoft Outlook (no specific version required). A great tool, totally underutilized if only used for emails. Finally make better use of the software that you already have.
- There will be many short exercises and tips for the transfer of theory into practice: how to handle interruptions and required changes, tracking of tasks via sticky notes, Kanban and much more.
- Time savers and productivity tips, e.g.:
– how to reduce the number of emails in your inbox
– how to set up an efficient info retrieval system
– fast and reliable tracking of emails and topics
This online class will guide you step by step through all relevant topics. Checklists and short exercises simplify the application, giving you the best return on your time investment. Check out the e-book here.
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