I believe that more than 80% of people in the workplace have heard of the "four-quadrant method of time". The popular saying is the "important emergency sorting method", which is to divide things into four quadrants according to important emergencies, important emergencies, unimportant emergencies and unimportant emergencies, and then do them in a certain order.
As for the sorting after classification, many people arrange it like this: first deal with important and urgent things, then do important and non-urgent things, and finally do things that are not important or urgent.
Even if we do things in this order, we will still encounter many problems in our work, which are basically insufficient preparation in the early stage and incomplete understanding of personal development!
A recent incident has subverted my understanding of the sequencing of important emergencies-
My team is preparing for a large-scale activity, and I am mainly responsible for publicity work, including writing propaganda copy, making H5 invitation letter, collecting information for mass activities, and making videos to play on the day of the activity.
Most of the work has no conflict in time, so I can deal with it one by one according to the deadline.
Only copywriting and H5 are contradictory. In my past work experience, copywriting is the most important and urgent, while H5 is neither so important nor so urgent. It only plays the role of assisting copywriting in propaganda, and can be completed after copywriting in terms of time schedule.
But the person in charge wants me to go out to H5 as soon as possible for publicity, but the publicity copy is not urgent. This means that the task order of my office has become, first, urgent and unimportant (H5), then important and urgent (copywriting).
Although I don't quite agree with this arrangement, in order to ensure that the project can proceed as planned, I managed to do H5 as soon as possible, and then spend more time and thought on what I think is the most important copy.
Unexpectedly, everyone put forward a lot of amendments to the H5 invitation letter, revised two or three drafts repeatedly, and finally finished it two days later than originally planned. This of course also affects the progress of other follow-up tasks.
The person in charge was also very dissatisfied, and when he docked with me, he complained that I didn't try my best and didn't work hard. And I am also full of complaints, thinking that he didn't explain it clearly in advance and criticized it repeatedly afterwards, which affected the progress of publicity.
However, after working for many years, I have gained a lot of experience in dealing with people. After the anger subsided, I began to reflect: our respective ideas seem to be reasonable, so what is the problem? If the root cause contradiction is not solved, similar things will happen again and again!
I re-examined my sorting of work tasks and suddenly realized that I had a deviation in sorting and classifying things. In the eyes of this person in charge, H5 is the most important and urgent thing, but the copy is not that important.
We have our own logic in sorting, and it is hard to say who is right or wrong. But for the whole project, the thought of the person in charge and the executor is not unified, which is caused by insufficient preparation and poor communication in the early stage, which is bound to have an impact on the promotion and final effect of the whole project!
After clarifying the contradictions, I took the initiative to communicate with the person in charge and pointed out the problems existing in the previous communication. At the same time, it is also pointed out that in future communication, we should not only explain the time nodes and confirm the emergency sequencing; Also need both sides to confirm the importance of a task!
In addition to full communication and reducing communication costs, whether a person can make good use of the important-emergency ranking is also related to his understanding of personal development.
Not long ago, my friend Xiao Zhang was faced with a career choice and got an offer from two companies when he was ready to jump ship.
A company's salary is better, but its development route is closer to technical experts, which conflicts with Xiao Zhang's personal character and career planning.
Company B is farther away from home than the salary is slightly lower. However, the future development direction is more focused on the management route, which coincides with Xiao Zhang's plan.
However, when faced with a choice, Xiao Zhang is in trouble again-after all, there is a monthly difference of 1000 yuan. Is it necessary to stick to his original idea?
Of course it is necessary!
There are two hidden items in the four-quadrant method that are closely related to personal development. For Xiao Zhang, which job to choose is not only related to the current income, but also determines the general direction of career development in the next 5~ 10 years. At the same time, every task accepted after joining the company further determines the personal long-term growth in the next 1~3 years.
The world of adults is very realistic, and it is of course important to get 1000 more a month. But if choosing the general direction of work is simply wrong, you will inevitably encounter many jobs that are important to the company in your daily work, but not so important to you.
I have experienced a job transfer before, and after the sudden departure of the company personnel, I left a lot of daily work to do. However, at that time, the company's operating conditions were not good, and the boss didn't want to recruit people and wanted me to go up.
From the perspective of income, my salary has not changed, and my work pressure has become less. Why not?
The problem is that I don't want to be a man at all!
If the direction is simply wrong, what can you do with your usual efforts? Spending most of your time on a job that you are not interested in or value, not only is it particularly tiring to do the work, but once you have the opportunity to choose again, you still have to go back to the original point and start over.
In this case, why sacrifice your future for a slightly better income in the short term?
The goal of the four-quadrant method is to manage time well through the sorting of "important-urgent", so the tasks that should be included in it are not only from a certain job, but also related to your long-term development and even the direction of your whole life.
In the short term, we should put the important and urgent items at the top of the task list and finish them first.
But in the long run, those important but not urgent tasks are more worth spending time and energy on, such as improving personal leadership, reading more books at ordinary times, getting first-hand information in the industry or making extensive contacts.
If time management is compared to water navigation, urgent things are like every paddle, which determines the speed of progress; What matters is the current course and your destination.
Therefore, professionals want to make good use of the "important-urgent" time management four-quadrant method, not only to clarify the sequencing of a project through communication, but also to locate their own development direction.
Don't waste too much time and energy on things that are not important but urgent for yourself and fall into unnecessary poverty!