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A major key to successful planning is learning how to prioritize. There is so much stuff that bombards us on a daily basis that it can be hard to sort through it all and make sure we get the important stuff done. Or even tell what the important stuff is for that matter. This problem gets even bigger when we have urgent things popping up all the time. Urgent is often mistaken for important.
Through this post I’ll be referring to these books:
and
Both of these books are amazing and highly recommend them. If you’re not looking to buy them you can get them for FREE by signing up for a FREE 30 trial of Audible or Kindle (You’re welcome 🙂 ). 
- Related: How to Start a Bullet Journal for Beginners
- Related: The 30-60-90: The Action Plan Version of Goals
The Time Matrix
To help sort through this issue, I’m going to refer to the Time Matrix as illustrated in the Steven Covey book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If you haven’t read this, you 100% should (get it here); it changed my life.
The time Matrix looks like this:
There are things that are important and things that aren’t. There are things that are urgent and things that aren’t and any combination of the two. A ringing phone can be urgent but isn’t necessarily important. Reading a story with your child usually isn’t urgent but it can be extremely important.
Being able to tell the difference between important and urgent is hard at first but once you get the hang of it, the pay off is huge. Using the above example, making sure we prioritize story time over the phone will make a big difference with our kids when we do it consistently.
Time Matrix Benefits
The idea behind this matrix is that the more time you spend in “Q2”, the less time you’ll need to spend be spending unproductively in the other quadrants.
Less “putting out fires”, being distracted or just plain old wasting your time. Since you’re planning and prioritizing you’ll be able to reduce crises by seeing them coming and proactively stopping them. You’ll be able to say “No” when appropriate or deal with the task/ person when you’re ready instead of when it/they appear. Essentially you’ll be in line with your priorities.
Finally, you won’t feel the need to escape into endless Netflix or sleeping because you’re not getting overwhelmed the same way you were when you were running from urgent task to urgent task. In short, you’ll become a much more effective person. With more time and energy for the truly important enjoyable things in your life.
When I started noticing the quadrants I was spending my time in and changing my patterns to have more Q2 time, it changed everything. By learning to prioritize the things that mattered I had more energy, more time, more of everything. I literally got at least 5 extra hours a week.
How Goals and Priorities Fit Together
When you have a set of goals you should prioritize your tasks accordingly. Here are a few examples.
Prioritize based on the type of day
The goal is to spend time outside since it’s a beautiful day. So perhaps I prioritize doing a little lawn work, walk the kids home from school and barbeque dinner while they play outside. I accomplish my goal of being outside by doing the things I need to do that align with the goal.
Set a time period to accomplish your goal within
The goal is to get the Spring Cleaning done. So my priorities are to go through one person’s closet a week getting rid of outgrown or worn clothes, putting away winter clothes and taking out the summer ones. Also thoroughly clean one room a week (kitchen, living room, bathrooms, and front entrance). That by the end of the month everything is fresh and ready for the warmer months.
With your goals and priorities mapped out and the decisions made it’s easier to stay on the path of getting it done. Things always seem like a hassle till you start and making a plan is you starting.
Big Rocks and Small Rocks
In the Franklin-Covey Book the 5 Choices (also HIGHLY recommend – get your copy here) they talk about rocks of different sizes representing all the things you need to do. The big rocks are the things that are important to you, your priorities/goals. There are small rocks with things like chores, errands, things that need to get done but are of mid-tier importance.
Gravel
Then there is gravel. Gravel are all the little things: emails, texts, pointless conversations etc. It’s easy to see that you got an email and answer it right away, the same is true for a text or answering a question or doing someone a favour when they could do it themselves.
These are all small things and when you do them first it’s like pouring some gravel into a container. Next, you need to unload the dishwasher and put in some laundry and whatever else then when it’s time to do something super important like quality time with your spouse or kids, your exhausted. Your big rocks (important stuff) can’t fit into the container anymore since you filled it all with gravel first!
The Solution
What most people don’t know is that there is an easy fix. If you block off time for the important things (Bedtime Routines between 7 and 8 pm and date night on Tuesday from 6-9pm), you put the big rocks in first. Once the big rocks are there all the gravel will shift and shake and fill in all the cracks. You’ll get everything in there and it will fit perfectly instead of you trying to force it. You’ll feel energized since you did the things that make you feel happy or accomplished. Then you have the motivation to do the smaller things and the smallest things get done as a by-product or they’ve taken care of themselves.
Check out the video below for a visual on what I’m talking about.
How tos:
Every Sunday take 15 minutes to write out goal and priorities for the week. Then schedule the time to do them. THIS TIME DOES NOT MOVE. If something pops up (unless it’s a true emergency) treat it like gravel, It will fit in around your priorities.
Plan your “work”, work your plan. After you set your priorities and schedule your time. STICK TO IT! You’ll be astounded by how much more you get out of your time
Check out my posts on How to Choose a Planner and 6 Time Management Strategies
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