Organization Method

Adam and I were talking today and he mentioned something about organizing and we talked a little bit about it. A thought from 7 Habits came into my mind and I don't know exactly what context it was used, but I think it can be a great way to organize our time, our day and our lives.

Basically we can classify everything we do into 4 different categories of importance:

Urgent and Important: Time deadlines, phone calls that need to be made now, things that if you don't do them right now, there will be undesirable consequences.

Urgent, Not Important: A fellow co-worker comes up for a chat, things that you feel you need to do right now, for whatever reason, but that aren't really that important in the long run

Not Urgent, Important: Things like reading your scriptures, preparing for a test, deep cleaning the house, food storage, things that don't have immediate deadlines, but by accomplishing them, we find ourselves prepared down the road.

Not Urgent, Not Important: TV Shows, Movies, Meaningless Chatter about sports (Michelle would be proud of me for putting that) and anything else that we do that really doesn't create any lasting value for ourselves or for other people.

Quick Challenge,

Take today and organize some of the things that you did today into these four categories. I think that we spend our time far too often doing things in the Not Urgent, Not Important realm.

Start now and for the rest of the day, write down some of the things that are Urgent and Important and need to be done right now. Then write down things that are Not Urgent, but Important and do those things next.

MW