Prioritization of tasks through efficiency matrices

Separation between the urgent and the essential

The saturation of requests, e-mails and operational requirements can easily paralyze an employee who does not have a task classification system.

To combat this chaos, there is an analytical method that breaks down obligations by eva luating two main variables: their degree of urgency and their real impact.

Those activities that are simultaneously pressing and of great importance must absorb our primary attention, since postponing them would trigger immediate operational crises.

On the other hand, there are projects that are of paramount importance for strategic growth, but which lack an imminent expiration date.

These tasks must be meticulously scheduled to avoid being buried into oblivion in the whirlwind of day-to-day business.

Consider a marketing manager: if the main sales website goes down, this work is critical and urgent; however, writing the brand manual for the coming year is critical but not pressing, so schedule it rather than execute it in the middle of the server outage.

Delegation and elimination of time-stealers

Once the primary priorities are covered, the method calls for coolly managing the remaining two quadrants of the matrix.

We constantly come across requests that require quick attention but which, in the big picture of our functions, are insignificant or do not require our technical expertise.

These kinds of engagements need to be delegated or redirected nimbly to the appropriate support staff, freeing up our hours for more intellectually valuable work.

Finally, there is an accumulation of daily actions that are neither of the slightest importance nor in any hurry.

Harmful habits such as compulsively surfing the Internet, checking social networks in an uncontrolled manner or attending meetings where our presence is redundant, act as black holes that devour productivity.

Identifying these cognitive traps and proceeding to their total elimination ensures that the human mind focuses all