From Time Management to Time Intelligence. Zach Davis

      Whether that is a reasonable decision we will discuss a bit later. But what to do about the tasks that other people want to have completed right away? The Eisenhower Method states that things falling into the quadrant “not important but urgent” should be delegated to someone else. That makes a certain kind of sense. But what do I do if there’s nobody I can delegate my task to, or if the people who theoretically are available are already overloaded with work? We need answers to these questions.

      Finally, for the quadrant “not important and not urgent,” the model tells us to dispose of the activity, in other words, not complete it at all. It does make sense up to a point to spend as little time as possible on tasks that are neither important nor urgent.

      But the biggest problem with this diagram is that it doesn’t help to solve the basic problem: having too much to do in too little time. How many people, in the midst of feeling overwhelmed, have the time and clarity to sit down and organize tasks according to the quadrants in order to devise the best strategy?

      Nevertheless, questions about the importance and urgency of a task are central aspects of our concept of time intelligence. Let’s look at an alternative approach: the time target. Since, logically, there remain four possible combinations, here too we have four sections – picture them as the rings of a dartboard.

      One thing before we start: it would be useful to know how we keep score in this game of time management. Here’s the system: the outer rings give you fewer points and the inner ones more. Now imagine you have 40 darts to throw. These represent the 40 hours of your workweek.

      Where do you aim with your darts? Of course you aim for the center, the innermost ring. Will you always hit the bull’s-eye? Of course not! But the more skilled you become at placing your darts, as with managing your time usage, the more often you will also attain the highest number of points. Now let’s see how we can attribute one of the possible combinations discussed above to each of the rings of our new target.

      Our seminar participants always reach the same conclusions: in the end what matters are two things: 1) the results that we are able to produce and 2) the stress level. We want to get the best possible results within a certain period of time while keeping the stress level tolerable. We’re not aiming for zero stress, but at least it should not chronically exceed an acceptable level. Our criteria for the assessment (our points) are, therefore, our results and our level of stress. Let’s remember that for later.

      What is the outermost ring? When we ask seminar participants, they usually answer quickly and unanimously, “not important and not urgent.” Once we have agreed on this, we have a clear definition for one of the four rings in our time target (let’s call this ring number one).

      While it is not a problem if we spend some time in this area, it does not give us many “points.” What would happen if you spent a lot of time here, though, doing things that are neither important nor urgent? What were our criteria again? Results and stress. Of course, if we pursue lots of unimportant tasks the results will not be good. The stress level may briefly be very low, but only until the really important tasks catch up with us. One example for a task that belongs in the first ring would be gathering statistics but not evaluating them critically and failing to act on them. The introduction of new systems that are no better than the old ones also belongs in this category.

      This category comprises all activities that do not bring improvement, and we will henceforth refer to it as the “area of escape,” because most people who spend a substantial amount of time in this area are trying to escape from other topics they don’t want to deal with. This applies to work as well as private life. Does this ring any bells for your own organization?

      What combination of qualities do we put into ring number two (counting from the outside)? Here, too, most seminar participants agree – even if there is sometimes a bit of discussion. Into this ring we put the combination “not important but urgent.” We can transform all activities from the first ring into this new category by adding an imminent deadline, such as the useless statistics, for example, that need to be compiled by the middle of the month. The deadline is fast approaching and we have hardly any time left. Now this unnecessary task is causing us time pressure.

      What would happen if you spent the majority of your time in this category? Correct: no good results. To be honest, the results would not be any better than in ring one (the outermost ring). Sometimes it can appear as though we achieve good results only because of the high level of stress. This is why this area will be called the “area of illusion”: there is the danger of believing something is important merely because it is urgent. Think about it for a moment. We all risk succumbing to this illusion, especially when someone is yelling at us. There are many different strategies for communicating that a task is urgent, starting with raising the volume of one’s voice, through frequency of repetition of the request (via multiple channels of communication: email, a telephone call, sometimes even a personal visit), to the number and rank of people on copy. By now it should start to be clear that we actually want to spend as little time as possible in ring two.

      What do we place into the third ring from the outside, and what should we put into the innermost ring? The complexity of the situation has been drastically reduced by now, since both “unimportant” combinations have already been assigned. Therefore, the two remaining rings must contain “important” areas. So we are left with the question where “important and urgent” and “important but not urgent” belong. Here, too, most people concur that “important and urgent” belongs in the center. This is where many people believe we should be spending our time! Really? Here is the crucial point at which time intelligence falls by the wayside, the reason many working people find themselves in the so-called rat race. Let’s take a look at the entire picture.

      Contrary to the majority of time management experts, we feel that “important and urgent” belongs in ring number three (still counting from the outside), and not in the innermost one! What belongs in the category “important and urgent”? All functions that have a distinct impact (and are therefore important) that you need to complete under time pressure. Most working people “live” here, spending the majority of their work time under these conditions.

      What effects does it have to work on high-impact tasks under time pressure? First, let’s look at the positive aspect: you achieve relatively good results. If you consistently filter out unimportant things (rings one and two, both urgent and not urgent), you have an above-average sense of priority management and therefore also above-average results.

      What’s the negative aspect of this way of proceeding? The price you pay is a permanently high level of stress. This third ring therefore is called the “fire department zone,” since the fire department necessarily carries out activities that are both important and urgent at the same time. If no one puts out the fire, the house will burn down – definitely not a good result! And the urgency is clear: if you wait three days to put out a fire, it will be too late.

      Psychological reasons can play a role in why some people spend a lot of time in a