Fourth Generation of Time Management, According to Stephen Covey. GRA 613X Fourth Generation of Time Management, According to Stephen Covey.

Groups Members Lydia Virginia Muthoki, 16-0052 Christine Mbenge Wambua, 12-0166 Irene Nzioka, 10-0923 Elvis Mbugua, 11-1906 Evelyn Magaju, 15-1906

Put first things first; Principles of Personal Management Challenge is not to manage time but to manage ourselves. We spend our time in one of four ways. Two factors that define an activity are urgent and important. Urgent requires immediate action-now though these activities may not be important.

The Time Management Matrix

Time management Importance has to do with results; if something is important, it contributes to your mission, values and high priority goals. We tend to react to urgent things. Important things on the other hand require more initiative, more proactivity. Activities in quadrant 1 are both urgent and important and they are called crisis or problems

Time management Quadrant 3 activities are urgent but not important. Urgency of these matters is based on the priorities and expectations of others. People who spend time on quadrant 3 and 4 activities lead irresponsible lives. Effective people stay out of quadrant 3 and 4 because urgent or not, they are not important.

Time management They also shrink quadrant 1 down to size by spending more time in quadrant 2. Quadrant 2 is the heart of effective personal management. Deals with things that are not urgent but important. Quadrant 2 deals with things like building relationships, writing a personal mission statement, long-range planning, exercising, preventive maintenance, preparation and capacity building activities.

Time management 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? Those are quadrant 2 activities. Our effectiveness takes great leaps when we do them.

Conclusion Quadrant 2 helps you to increase your effectiveness. Your problems and crisis would reduce to manageable proportions because you would be thinking ahead, working on the roots, doing the preventive things that keep the situations from developing into crisis in the first place. This is called the pareto principle-80 percent of results flow out of 20 percent of the activities.

Reference: Covey, S.,(2004).The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. London: Simon & Schuster.