Introduction

Many years ago when I was a freshman in college, I was sitting in a seminar and the speaker asked us a question; have you thought about what you want to accomplish in 5 years, 10 years? When I first heard this question, I laughed to myself and thought: I haven’t even made plans for next week, or next month.

That was back in 1999. It is now 2018, almost 20 years have passed. I no longer laugh at that question. I could’ve made and accomplished four 5-year plans by now.

Time goes by fast when you’re not paying attention. 5 or 10 years may seem like a long time now, but you’ll be there before you know it. It is good to sit down and make some long-term plans, and be intentional with your life. What do you want to accomplish in 5 years? where do you want to be in 10 years?

There are many ways to be intentional and manage priorities in your life, but today I’d like to introduce you to a simple, yet powerful tool known as the Time Matrix.

Enter the Time Matrix

The Time Matrix concept is vey simple. It only uses 2 criteria for evaluation: importance and urgency. Hence we have 4 quadrants:

• Important & urgent
• Not important & urgent
• Not important & not urgent
• Important & not urgent

It looks like this:

Image source: http://nextactforwomen.com/coachs-corner/stephen-covey-prioritizing/?print=print

Examples of activities in each quadrant

• Important & urgent:
  • crisis/emergencies: physical injury, sickness, accident
  • project deadlines
• Not important & urgent:
  • distractions
  • phone calls, instant messages
  • chores around the house, for eg, dirty dishes and laundry
• Not important & not urgent:
  • entertainment: movies, partying
  • social media, browsing internet
• Important & not urgent:
  • relationship building
  • personal and career development
  • financial investments/retirement planning
  • exercise, health

Results of activities in each quadrant

So, what kind of results do we get when we spend time doing activities in each quadrant? I’ve highlighted the results in bold below.

• Important & urgent:
  • firefighting
  • have no choice but attend to it immediately
  • cause stress, burn out,
• Not important & urgent:
  • distracted
  • short term focus, and lack of vision
  • always busy, tend to only have shallow relationships,
  • feels like life is out of control
• Not important & not urgent:
  • time wasting
  • irresponsible
  • but, not all bad. At times it can be relaxing and good way to rest
• Important & not urgent:
  • quality time
  • develop long term vision and perspective
  • develop discipline and character
  • gains control of your life, reduce crisis

Focus on Important & Not Urgent things

So we probably all agree that the “important & not urgent” quadrant is the one that has more long term significance, but we don’t spend enough time on. We live in a time where we are constantly connected to others, no matter where we go. It seems there’s always something demanding our attention. It’s ironic that all these modern technologies are supposed to simplify our lives, yet we always find a way to cram more busyness into our lives.

It’s evident to me that in order to pursue long term success, we have to be very intentional about spending time doing activities in the “important & not urgent” quadrant, b/c they it won’t happen on its own.

An example from my own life

At my home I’m responsible for washing dishes. We have dirty dishes every day, so they pile up very fast. Every night I have a choice to make: do I spend time washing dishes and doing other chores around the house, or do I spend some quality bed time with my kids before they go to sleep?

In recent years I’ve started to prioritize spending time reading a book to my kids at bed time b/c it’s an uninterrupted, safe environment where I can teach them whatever I want. I’ve also seen that they let their guards down and open up to me about their day. I get to hear things from them that they wouldn’t typically share with me, and they all end up sleeping better.

This is a good example of choosing to do the important vs the urgent. Dishes and chores are more urgent, but they are not that important in the grand scheme of things. Spending quality time with my kids is not urgent, but it is very important long term. When my kids grow up, I would rather them to remember that I valued quality time with them over a clean house.

How would you apply the Time Matrix in your life?

How could you utilize the Time Matrix in your own life? Take a look at your list of short and long term to-dos, your daily routine, your weekly routine. How are you spending your time? Then try to fill out the 4 quadrants.

Here’s a list of things that I feel like I need to be more intentional about, in case you want to use it as a start for yourself:

• • spiritual life
    • time with God, reading Bible
  • relationships
    • wife
    • kids
    • extended family
    • people at my church
    • friends
    • coworkers
  • fitness/exercise/health
  • personal development, books to read
  • leadership/character development
  • career/professional skills development
  • real estate investment/retirement planning
  • speaking skills: Toastmasters
  • rest/vacation

Conclusion

We looked at the Time Matrix with some examples, we looked at how we characterize the results of activities in each quadrant, and then finally we zeroed in on the “important & not urgent” quadrant, and talked about how we can be more intentional with activities in that quadrant.

Remember this one thing: be intentional with important things in your life, b/c they will not happen on their own.