The Eisenhower Matrix came to mind yesterday, and I found some good information on it at EISENHOWER MATRIX | PRIORITIZATION FRAMEWORK | DEFINITION AND EXAMPLES (PRODUCTPLAN.COM). I sat myself down with my To Do list, to try to sort things into these categories, to see what I really needed to prioritize. I learned some interesting things about myself!
The Spectrum of “Urgent”
There’s a huge spectrum of what I consider “Urgent.” Things that are truly Urgent never make it onto the list. If a child is crying, a doctor calls, or there is a large spill on the floor, those things are just attended to immediately. I don't write them down. I usually don't even consider them when reflecting on how I spend my time. Then there’s the Slightly Less Urgent (things that need to get done at some point today). Something really interesting I noticed was that I put “Daily DuoLingo Exercises” into Urgent & Important, but I put Physical Therapy Exercises into Important but Not Urgent. This was surprising, because I certainly feel that the former is less important than the latter. I think I know the reason. When I do the latter, the program congratulates me for my 131-Day Streak. When I do the former, there’s no confetti and music, I just get to move that item from today’s To Do list to tomorrow’s.
What Am I Getting Done?
I felt the same anti-climactic let-down with a lot of items, even single-time tasks that I could just delete once they were completed. This just left me with what was still a long list for today, even longer for tomorrow, and a feeling of questioning what I had done with my day. I tried starting a notebook in which I wrote things down as I did them, so that I could look back and see what I had accomplished at the end of the day. This just felt like a desperate attempt to prove I was spending my life in worthwhile ways. It didn’t stem the feeling that I’d let my family down by choosing to spend my time doing these things, instead of others which were more important in the grand scheme of things.
Important & Quick
There’s also a spectrum of what I consider “Important.” I may do something less important than something else, simply because I can get it done more quickly, and be able to delete it from my list. Or I may do it first because the moment of reckoning - when it will become clear to someone else whether I've gotten something done or not - comes sooner.
Competing Priorities
I found competing categories of priorities as well. There are things my kids need, things my marriage needs, and things my home needs. There are things my business needs, things my body needs, and things my ego needs. It’s often easier to prioritize things within these individual lists; but it’s a lot harder to prioritize the lists against one another.
Time Wasters?
Nothing at all went into quadrants 3 or 4. So apparently everything on my list, I consider important. That’s a whole topic to consider separately! However, I think my biggest “time wasters” are tied: Facebook and Word Wars (an online scrabble-type game), with Pinterest a close second. But even these are things I don’t want to “delete” from my life. With Facebook, I try to only view posts from people I care about. I want to stay in touch with what’s happening in their lives. I also use the app to see if there are interesting events coming up that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise. Word Wars is a mind game that I find enriching. It also helps me to feel close to my dad, and I think about him often as I’m playing it. Pinterest is great for recipes, hairstyles, makeup, home remedies, and a million other useful things.
Action Items
OK, time to figure out what actionable items I can develop from these reflections…
I just downloaded the app “HabitNow.” This will allow me to get “streaks” in things that I’m not going to want to break. This “streak” idea has been working fantastically for DuoLingo. I’ll keep you posted on how it works for Physical Therapy, meditative walks outside and cleaning the house!