Our days are often filled with the completion of necessary tasks. Oftentimes, you may feel stressed and busy as you try to keep up with life. As you strike items off your to-do lists, you must find ways to be productive rather than busy. If the completion of your daily tasks only results in simply maintaining you, your businesses and your family, are you truly making progress?
Some days feel much more productive than others, yet what type of progress are you making? It can be far too easy to lose focus on your end goals. What do you really want to build for yourself and your family? What type of legacy do you want? Where is all your work taking you?
At times, the best thing you can do for you, your business, and your family is stepping away for a few days. Enjoy these pictures from our family reunion last month where we had the opportunity to appreciate togetherness in Utah’s great outdoors.
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Business owners often find themselves running out of time. There are more tasks and to-dos than there is time in a day. Often, owners are stuck with putting out fires rather than working on improving and growing their businesses.
The Eisenhower Matrix, a tool built by Steven R. Covey, will help break down and prioritize which daily activities are most important. The framework focuses on classifying tasks into four quadrants based on urgency and importance. Since it is natural for us to focus on what is urgent, due to real or perceived deadlines, the matrix is a tool to help refocus on what is important prior to urgency when those items may not really be important.
Try using this simple matrix to help you step back from putting out fires and re-engage with the real focus, finding purpose in your day, and taking control of your time.
Urgent & Important – Do It
Do it – These tasks are easy to identify because they are at the forefront of your mind. There are clear deadlines and consequences for failing to meet deadlines in this type of task. It is not uncommon for last-second projects to be sprung on you from outside sources that meet the criteria to be urgent and important. It is worth noting these tasks are unavoidable. There will always be urgent and important tasks to focus on. These tasks are rarely ones you are passionate about, so spending too much time on them could lead to stress and burnout.
Not Urgent & Important – Schedule It
Schedule It – As a business owner, you will always have a long list of important tasks. These tasks are the ones you are likely most passionate about. Tasks in this quadrant often help you focus on your personal and professional long-term goals. These tasks help you focus on growth and opportunity. If you can keep your focus on this quadrant, the number of urgent tasks will likely decrease as you stay ahead of them.
Urgent & Unimportant – Delegate It
Delegate it – This quadrant can be summed up as busy work. These tasks take up too much of your precious time. Do these tasks really need to be done right away? Is the urgency just a perceived sense of urgency? Can you shift them to someone else? If you spend too much time with tasks in this area, you don’t get to spend time on things you really like to do.
Not Urgent & Unimportant – Delete It
Delete it – Tasks here need to just be dropped. These tasks often rule your life and take the most time. If you are spending time on activities in this quadrant, you will not have time for the important tasks in your life. Find ways to eliminate activities in this area.
“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and a focused effort.”
––Paul J. Meyer
Finding work-life balance is almost a false narrative. If we focus too much on trying to balance, we lose focus on what is being balanced. Often, the best way to “balance” is to prioritize which part of life we want to focus on at a given point in time, whether that be family, work, or play. This allows us to give full attention to that which requires our attention at a given moment.
––Brian Mohler, Eagle Corporate Advisors
Time is key to growing your business. You and your business are, in many ways, one and the same. Planned growth is built when your time and energy are spent on what you really want to achieve.
Eagle offers expert advice, planning, and introductions to a team of professionals that takes the time to understand what it really means to be busy with urgent and important duties. Together, we will clarify and apply your ambitions in the right direction, connecting you with your target, and with your personal goals.
Keeping you on track with your new plan for growth and ensuring that you are performing higher — that’s how we serve.
Seek expertise. Reap long term benefits.