Systems, Importance and Urgency

There are times when days simply don’t feel long enough. I’m currently going through such a time. Find myself falling slightly behind.

I made some adjustments to my productivity systems at the start of the year. I blogged about it here. I’m not really very happy with the change. Will review the book – Getting Things Done – again over the weekend. Perhaps I have not been true to David Allen’s recommended approach. Perhaps I’m actually using a hybrid of his suggested approach and my old tried and true approach. Perhaps that’s the problem. We shall see.

During our Franchise Owner Training last week, the franchisor presented the stats that will follow shortly. I did not get a source for the information, but I’m sure I can trust the franchisor’s figures. And even if they’re off a little, the point will remain unchanged.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with Stephen Covey’s four quadrant-model that defines tasks along two axis – Importance and Urgency. (I've blogged on this before here.) You end up with four quadrants. (I’ll simply list them here rather than trying to draw them.)

1) IMPORTANT and URGENT
2) IMPORTANT and NOT URGENT
3) NOT IMPORTANT and URGENT
4) NOT IMPORTANT and NOT URGENT

Clearly one would want to dedicate most resources (e.g. dollars, time, staff, etc.) to quadrants 1 and 2.

Here are the stats. Most companies apply their resources across the quadrants like this:
1) 25-30% – IMPORTANT and URGENT
2) 15% – IMPORTANT and NOT URGENT
3) 50-60% – NOT IMPORTANT and URGENT
4) 2-3% – NOT IMPORTANT and NOT URGENT

However, “high performing” companies apply their resources like this:
1) 25-30% – IMPORTANT and URGENT
2) 65-80% – IMPORTANT and NOT URGENT
3) 15% – NOT IMPORTANT and URGENT
4) Less than 1% – NOT IMPORTANT and NOT URGENT

So, where do you spend your resources?