Appendix B

A Quadrant II Day at the Office

The following exercise and analysis is designed to help you see the impact of a Quadrant II

paradigm in a business setting on a very practical level.

Suppose that you are the director of marketing for a major pharmaceutical firm. You are about to

begin an average day at the office, and as you look over the items to attend to that day, you estimate the amount of time each one will take.

Your unprioritized list includes the following:

1. You'd like to have lunch with the general manager (1-1 1/2 hours).

2. You were instructed the day before to prepare your media budget for the following year (2 or 3

days).

3. Your "IN" basket is overflowing into your "OUT" basket (1-1 1/2 hours).

4. You need to talk to the sales manager about last month's sales; his office is down the hall (4

hours).

5. You have several items of correspondence that your secretary says are urgent (1 hour).

6. You'd like to catch up on the medical journals piled upon your desk (1/2 hour).

7. You need to prepare a presentation for a sales meeting slated for next month (2 hours).

8. There's a rumor that the last batch of product X didn't pass quality control.

9. Someone from the FDA wants you to return his call about product X (1/2 hour).

10. There is a meeting at 2 P.M. for the executive board, but you don't know what it is about (1

hour).

Take a few minutes now and use what you have learned from Habits 1, 2, and 3 that might help you

to effectively schedule your day.

By asking you to plan only one day, I have automatically eliminated the wider context of the week

so fundamental to fourth generation time management. But you will be able to see the power of

Quadrant II, principle-centered paradigm even in the context of one nine-hour period of time

It is fairly obvious that most of the items on the list are Quadrant I activities. With the exception of item number six -- catching up on medical journals -- everything else is seemingly both important and

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart urgent.

If you were a third-generation time manager, using prioritized values and goals, you would have a

framework for making such scheduling decisions and would perhaps assign a letter such as A, B, or C

next to each item and then number 1, 2, 3 under each A, B, and C. You would also consider the

circumstances, such as the availability of other people involved, and the logical amount of time required to eat lunch. Finally, based on all of these factors, you would schedule the day.

Many third-generation time managers who have done this exercise do exactly what I have described.

They schedule when they will do what, and based on various assumptions which are made and

explicitly identified, they would accomplish or at least begin most of the items in that day and push the remainder onto the next day or to some other time.

For instance, most people indicate that they would use the time between 8 and 9 A.M. to find out

exactly what was on the agenda for the executive board meeting so that they could prepare for it, to set

up lunch with the general manager around noon, and to return the call from the FDA. They usually

plan to spend the next hour or two talking to the sales manager, handling those correspondence items

which are most important and urgent, and checking out the rumor regarding the last batch of product X

which apparently didn't pass quality control. The rest of that morning is spent in preparing for the

luncheon visit with the general manager and/or for the 2 P.M. executive board meeting, or dealing with

whatever problems were uncovered regarding product X and last month's sales.

After lunch, the afternoon is usually spent attending to the unfinished matters just mentioned

and/or attempting to finish the other most important and urgent correspondence, making some

headway into the overflowing "IN" basket, and handling other important and urgent items that may have come up during the course of the day.

Most people feel the media budget preparations for the following year and the preparation for the

next month's sales meeting could probably be put off until another day, which may not have as many

Quadrant I items in it. Both of those are obviously more Quadrant II activities, having to do with

long-term thinking and planning. The medical journals continue to be set aside because they are

clearly Quadrant II and are probably less important than the other two Quadrant II matters just

mentioned.

What approach did you take as you scheduled those items? Was it similar to the third-generation

approach? Or did you take a Quadrant II, fourth-generation approach? (refer to the Time Management

Matrix on page 151).

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 1120