Page 340 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

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328 | Chapter 16 ACE Pro India Pvt. Ltd.

Answer this question: What one thing could you do in your personal
and professional life that, if you did on a regular basis, would make
a tremendous positive difference in your life? Chances are that it is a
Quadrant II activity. Effective, proactive people spend most of their
time in Quadrant II. Suggest Quadrant II activities instead.

iii. Quadrant III: Urgent but not important
This quadrant contains those activities which appear to be urgent (or
at least seem to demand our attention as such) but are really not that
important. Examples include: needless interruptions, multiple phone
calls, and other people’s minor issues (which they invariably seek to
make major ones because they like to live in this quadrant!) among
others. A good example is that of phone calls during your study time.
Most of us are ‘phone addicted’ and find ourselves unable to resist a ring-
ing phone. If you really take notice, you will find that most phone calls
are not important. If it is important the person will call you back! This is
a quadrant we tend to fall into when we become ‘urgently addicted’. We
get a nice rush from the pressures of Quadrant I and the success we have
in solving these issues. Unfortunately, we then begin to fall into the habit
of mistaking urgent matters in Quadrant III which are not important as
being important. Hence our precious time tends to drift into Quadrant
III (since there are more of these items hitting in on our daily lives than
any other) and we end up dealing with not very important matters most
of the time. As a result our PC abilities begin to erode and hence our
productivity rapidly falls off as well. This is the sure path to personal fail-
ure. The message is clear. Our ‘first things first’ planning should aim at
spending less time in Quadrant II and moving that time to Quadrant III
activities. This planner, along with the planning instructional materials,
is designed to help you move in this direction!
iv. Quadrant IV: Not urgent and not important
Here we find items such as excessive TV watching, means of time
wasting, busy work, some phone calls, ‘escape’ activities, and others.
Obviously we don’t want to do these things in excess. The key is
‘in excess’. Reading escapist literature (Romance) is not bad in and of
it self, but when taken to extremes (i.e., we spend all week finishing off
that novel instead of going over our notes) the danger should be clear.
All the activities enlisted here have a valued place as once-in-a-while
rewards, if not used excessively!
In summary, spending less time in Quadrant III and IV will give us more
time to spend in Quadrant II, so that we can put first things first, with the
added benefit that we will also be finding ourselves dealing with fewer
Quadrant I crises.

Bhatnagar_Chapter 16.indd 328 2011-06-23 8:00:41 PM
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