The Prioritisation Grid
The powerful visualisation tool that makes your life simpler
Abstract
Following my last post on productivity, a key insight given was the importance of direction. But getting your direction is just one thing, and using your time wisely is another.
If you were to look at different prioritisation grids from a search, you would note that they vary and have different elements such as value, effort, urgency, etc. However, inspired by the book: ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Steven Covey, I have kept my use and perception of a prioritisation grid simple and entirely relatable to a student organising their tasks and responsibilities.
As the book discusses the relationship between urgent and important tasks, Stephen Covey says: “Important matters that are not urgent require more initiative, more proactivity.”
This brings me to the question:
Have you ever written down all your targets, goals and what you wanted to achieve?
The following discussion aims to be informative and equip you with a quick and easy tool to visualise all of your targets, goals, and ambitions.
Discussion
What is a prioritisation grid?
Firstly, Quadrant 1. This quadrant contains the tasks, goals, and priorities of the upmost importance in your day-to-day life. Generally, these are things that your life revolve around and provide the framework for how we lead our lives. For example, this could be school, university, or a job, in which everything else you do is mostly centred around the time you have remaining from these priorities.
Outside of a traditional framework however, it is less obvious to recognise urgent and important tasks and projects. As said before, the elements of Quadrant 1 ‘lead’ our lives. Despite this, people either accidentally allow it to dictate their lives, or obsess over school, work, or study due to an inability to observe their future targets, goals, and priorities.
What is foremost is to recognise that you cannot only focus on Quadrant 1; this will only lead to dissatisfaction and work being done that is superficial in relation to your values.
Don’t get me wrong, tunnel-vision on an immediate priority definitely gets the work done in the short-term. But the reason it is dangerous is because you are blocking out or sacrificing other factions of your life in order to put as much energy, attention, and focus into a task. In the short-term this may be manageable, but in the long-term, which most fail to realise, it is not sustainable.
When Stephen Covey discusses people who have an overpowering focus on Quadrant 1, he says: “The only relief they have is in escaping to the root of the not important, not urgent activities of Quadrant IV”.
As the prioritisation grid above shows, Quadrant 4 includes the tasks you should eliminate. Essentially, this is aimless procrastination. When talking about prioritisation and productivity, we are talking about progressing in your desired direction.
Remember the prioritisation grid is considering the tasks, targets, and goals you want/have to achieve. It is not meant to rank the importance of everything in your life and it’s definitely not telling you to cut out any leisure, as if it is unimportant.
Quite simply, Quadrant 4 is referring to anything ongoing in your life that upon reflection is not urgent, neither important. Just cut it out and ask yourself: Where else can you use that time?
Moving onto Quadrant 3. This is an interesting quadrant which requires detailed consideration. The word ‘delegate’ typically means to pass the task onto another person. Can you relieve pressure off yourself by delegating something that you are currently doing?
Most likely, this would relate to a personal project, something outside of education or work. However, here are some ideas that a student can consider:
Can I work with someone to reduce my workload?
Can I find ways to make revision/learning easier?
By reflecting on these questions, what you would realise is that by answering these questions, you would feel a sense of agency with how you manage your time. If you can reduce the intensity/responsibility you shoulder from early on, what you would find is that when you do have to work independently, it would serve as a springboard for your own learning.
You may feel as if you have exhausted your ways of studying, and reflecting on these questions could be a great way to revitalise your learning. Through my experience, having the perspective of other focused peers is something that could make learning a lot easier.
This comes back to defining things on your own terms, and though understanding and recognising the situation you find yourself in, this can be really powerful.
Away from delegation, Quadrant 3 is extremely important in another facet. It can serve as a trap for those who believe they are completing Quadrant 1 tasks.
How?
Deadlines are our default way of inciting urgency. A subconscious misconception this raises is the assumption that everything urgent is important. From my perspective, it is extremely difficult as a student to distinguish between Quadrant 1 and 3. For example, homework. A deadline is given, so you do it by the deadline. More often than not, it is also important and part of Quadrant 1.
Aside from the incentives given to completing your homework, I found myself in a situation whereby around exam season, completing certain homework was pointless. From my perspective, it did not directly push me towards what I needed to reinforce or improve on. Therefore, it would not have been a productive use of my time, which required me to go against the default bias of completing all the homework given to you. In the case of exam season, that is completely understandable.
But this example highlights that by analysing your situation and what is required of you in the moment, you need to be decisive in deciding what is urgent and important.
Despite this, still do your homework.
However, being caught in a wave of unrealistic personal targets and being continuously reactive to everything thrown at you is not an enjoyable experience; I just found it frustrating and exhausting. In my opinion, as a student, Quadrant 3 is the most difficult quadrant to reflect on.
Therefore, here is a brief overview when focusing on what is important and not urgent: Reflect on how you can manage your time so it isn’t just one thing after the other. Being caught in the wave inhibits your ability to be inspired, reflect, and work towards your potential. But you must be realistic; work with the circumstances you are in and the pressures that you place on yourself.
This leaves me with Quadrant 2.
Quadrant 2 is where your unique potential outside of work and education lies but is often neglected.
Many of us get too caught up in Quadrant 1 activities and as discussed earlier, reside helplessly to Quadrant 4 activities as a means of temporary escape. This is understandable, as the last thing we want to do after a long day is to work on another personal project.
Unbeknownst to us though, we fail to recognise how Quadrant 1 stops us from doing what we really want to do in our daily lives, aside from the occasional epiphany in which we express our discontent, only to return to how things were before.
From observation, it seems as we get older, the more we value and appreciate Quadrant 2. Sometimes, we diverge too far away from what we want to do, which causes the same old story of regret, midlife crises, and a lot more.
But let’s lighten the mood.
In the grid, you see ‘Plan’. This is because, instead of leaving it to significant life events or shocks to your current lifestyle, it is extremely important to mentally position yourself in a place you aspire to be or the personal achievements you wish to fulfil. This draws parallels with my first post, in which I discussed in depth how value in what you do is rooted in how you self-define the achievements you wish to reach.
Quadrant 2 relieves Quadrant 1, as it prompts Quadrant 1 responsibilities to be framed as experiences which are moulded to the future goal that you have planned for, i.e. you find the greater good in every experience you have. In this sense, you would learn to appreciate the skills and qualities you acquire whilst actively working on the important and urgent activities/tasks, which usually are centred around education and roles of responsibility.
This should leave you framing every experience you encounter as positive. Mould these unique experiences to give yourself the edge ahead of everyone else. Professionally or academically, what have you done that is an experience unique to you? This is essentially what you do when you ‘sell yourself’ through your CV or in an interview.
It is extremely easy for a person to say that certain things are important to them. That person, assuming that they are genuine in their belief, can end up pushing that thing back, further back, and end up never doing it.
Even when people have the time to spend on Quadrant 2 activities, uncertainty and doubt often lead to neglection of these activities, only to lead to procrastination. A perfect example is starting to go gym. Worrying about not knowing how to use equipment, what people are going to think, and generally overthinking just reinforce a mental blockade you have made for yourself.
The only way to build a habit is to first embrace it.
Conclusion
No quadrant should be reflected more than the other when reflecting on your priorities.
As a tool, I have found the prioritisation grid extremely useful, as a way to visualise all my responsibilities, ambitions, and clarify the habits I would like to integrate within my day-to-day. By taking time to reflect on your priorities, this should empower and motivate you, both of which are temporary. In order to reaffirm these priorities and make them a constant, they require you to take action with your determination and personal drive, where you should experiment while you can.
For example, Quadrant 2 may be overfilled with ideas; which may overwhelm you. But take what you think is priority amongst the list and even if you do not start instantaneously: What can you do now to make it easier to pass the initial hurdle of trying something new?
Although a prioritisation grid is extremely useful, it should be used in conjunction with other tools which can help you with prioritising, such as calendars, to-do lists, etc., this way, you can maximise its effectiveness, and implement the structural changes you wish to make also, with a short-term view of how to achieve this.
P.S.
Is it your first time hearing about a prioritisation grid? How do you see a prioritisation grid helping you?
Let me know if you have heard of something similar. 👍🏾