Time management skills: is a task urgent or important?

Today is one of those strange quasi-holiday days. Many law offices are open, many are closed but still fully functioning, and most people have the good fortune not to have deadlines for today. Today’s post could easily fall on the work/life balance topic (will you work over the 4th or declare independence for at least one day?) but instead, let’s address the urgent/important dichotomy.

A very simple distinction, this one applies not only to practice management but also to practice itself.

Stephen Covey has written about time use and devised a four-quadrant chart to help us judge where we spend most of our time:

QUADRANT I: Urgent and Important: Crises, problems, deadline-driven projects.

QUADRANT II: Not Urgent, but Important: Preparation, problem prevention, planning, relationship building, values clarification, true recreation (”re-creation”).

QUADRANT III: Urgent, but Not Important: Interruptions, some phone calls, some meetings, some email.

QUANDRANT IV: Not Urgent, Not Important: Junk mail, spam, busywork, trivia, “escape” activities, mindless web surfing, etc.

Where do you spend most of your time? While it’s undeniable that Quadrant I requires attention and Quadrant III calls for attention (though the call may be illusory), Quadrant II is the critical zone. That’s where the real work that truly moves us forward gets done.

For instance, suppose you’ve decide to leave your current job. Quadrant I may demand you update your resume, call a recruiter, and set up a job agent on a job search website. Quadrant III is returning a call from a recruiter who has the perfect position — except that it’s in Salt Lake City and you have no desire to live there — and it’s most interviews. (Note that in this example, it’s hard to evaluate in advance whether something is important or not!) Quandrant IV is browsing all the legal jobs in the U.S. on a website, maybe visiting the Greedy Associates web page “just to see” what salaries are doing — things that may look like they’re related to your job search but really do nothing for you except waste time. And Quadrant II is where you spend time when you stop to think about what exactly you want in your new job: firm or in-house? Small, medium, or large firm? Should you work with a recruiter? What geographic location suits you best?

Quadrant II yields the strongest results. That’s where the real work happens, where we’re able to engage in analysis that will help move us forward. It may be helpful or even critical to spend time in Quadrant I; we all spend some time in Quadrant III, but we can be aware of that time and choose to limit it; Quadrant IV is best avoided because it’s neither productive nor refreshing time.

Question for reflection: both in practice and in your career/practice management, where are you spending your time? Are you visiting Quadrant II enough?

Finally, according to a 2001 article published in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly: “Lawyers are good subjects for coaching because they are results-oriented professionals. But like most busy professionals, it is hard for lawyers to consistently focus on things that are important, but not urgent. In addition, while attorneys may get good training in “lawyering” in the early years of practice, they are less likely to get any consistent and focused training on how to develop their professional and personal lives. A law degree can still open up a lot of doors for you, but real career satisfaction takes both hard work and planning. Having the degree, and working in a good law firm, are not enough. Many of us do not take the time to reflect on what we really want. Some of us do not know what steps to follow to get what we want. Still others know the steps, but cannot figure out how to rearrange their professional and personal lives to make room for these important, but not urgent, activities. A coach can be the key ingredient in making things happen.” Do you need a coach?

If this post was helpful to you, please visit this post for information about joining a free teleclass titled Five Foundations of Time Management for Attorneys on Thursday, October 11, 2007. If you’d prefer, you can also sign up to attend and to receive the recording of the call (as well as a few other reasources, which all together comprise the Life at the Bar Survival Kit) by visiting this page of my website. We’ll be discussing the urgent/important system of prioritizing, among other topics. I hope you’ll join us!

NOTE:  The Life at the Bar blog has MOVED!  To find the latest posts about time management and productivity, business development, communications skills, leadership development, and much more relevant to lawyers and the practice of law, please visit www.lifeatthebar.com/blog.

Explore posts in the same categories: Coaching and law, Time management/productivity

Tags: Covey, Five Foundations, important, urgent

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