One of the biggest shifts in my productivity was finding a way to sort out what is important, not merely what is urgent. The funny thing is that once I started to get a handle on identifying the important items, I was able to spend more time on being pro-active, preventative projects, and the like (and not feel guilty about it either). This created a feedback loop which further reduces the urgent items that come up on any given day. I can’t completely eliminate urgent items, but I can do a far better job at reducing how often they occur in my work and life.

So how do you do this?  And what exactly do I mean by Important versus Urgent?

You start by putting your tasks into four quadrants:

1. Important & Urgent (emergencies, pressing problems, deadline-driven projects, scheduled activities)
2. Important & Not Urgent (preparation, planning, clarifying goals and priorities, true relaxation/recreation)
3. Urgent & Not Important (interruptions including many types of calls & emails, things that easily distract and fool us into being busy but don’t get us closer to our priorities)
4. Not Urgent & Not Important (trivia, time wasters, escape activities, junk mail)

I find that most individuals, including highly dedicated professionals, spend a considerable amount of time in #1 and #3. Folks that really fool around spend a considerable portion of their time in #4.

The goal, presuming you want to productively work towards your priorities and shift as much of your work away from fire-fighting as possible (and towards value creation), is to spend as much time as possible in #2. Ideally, any other activities that don’t justify being in #2 should at least fall into #1 (both of these quadrants represent important work).

Here are some images (including a nifty mind map) to visualize this:

Click on the below image to download the mind map image (pay particular attention to the comment bubbles in yellow and connecting them):

And here is a PDF to a blank matrix to help you brainstorm this for yourself:

Covey 7 Habits Time Quadrants

These concepts and framework is all drawn from Steven Covey’s two books:

• First Things First [$11 @ Amazon.com]
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People [$6.99@  Amazon.com]

If you found this post interesting, in addition to checking out both of these books, you may also find Randy Pausch’s Time Management presentation insightful:

[first 7:30 minutes or so of video are folks introducing him if you feel like skipping over those]

So what do you think: Are these concepts something you can utilize in your work and life?

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In early 2007, several months after moving on from my last venture, I found myself sitting on my butt a lot doing — well — not much of anything (I did get a lot of reading in).

I wasn’t getting out all that much to interact with other people and wanted to re-connect with folks. I did not have any system for tracking my various contacts. I had no centralized address book. And what information I did have seemed to be incomplete and usually out of date.

Which was a serious problem since I was supposed to be freelancing and consulting while I decided what was next. And that required doing some hustling to get gigs, which was best started within my existing professional and personal networks.

At some point, I stumbled across LinkedIn.com, which is a well established online networking community for professionals. It is NOT the place where you go to find out whether your drunken college buddies are, well, still drinking.

It turns out that LinkedIn.com is a wonderful automatically updated “rolodex” of sorts. I found it useful to remind me about people I knew (some well, many casually or very loosely), but had fallen out of contact with due to changes in jobs, organizations, projects, and engagements …as well as changed email accounts, phone numbers, and addresses.

Now, the interesting thing about this, is that based upon a couple of studies and references I’ve read, the average person “knows” about 250 people or so. That may sound like a lot to you (or not). Most people can come up with at least half of those people within 30 minutes or so if compelled to do so. The balance will pop into their mind over the next couple of days, if they keep thinking about it every so often as well as through reminders from reviewing the initial list of ~100 people they came up with (remembering one person often reminds you of another).

This is good news for those who are bad about cultivating their professional networks because, chances are, you know more people than you think already! You don’t have to use LinkedIn.com to do it, but I found it VERY helpful for me. I don’t really use its other features (I just have the free account).

By using LinkedIn.com to track down old colleagues, employees, employers, friends, and even relatives(in their day jobs) you’ll be putting in place a good foundation to stay connected with these folks no matter where they — and you — end up going in the future.

Sending a connection request on LinkedIn.com to someone you know also provides a convenient excuse to touch base with them. I do have one important suggestion though (which I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t realize myself until sending out 150+ connection requests): change the default connection message text. You’ll have far more luck getting people to acknowledge your connection and it’s far more polite and friendly (bring some humanity to the process — heh social media!). The default message text I’m talking about (and suggesting you customize) is the dreaded:

I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

Once you start using LinkedIn.com it also becomes helpful in two other really cool ways:

1. Checking out a bit of the professional background for someone you just met …or are about to meet (or talk to on the phone). Think a prospective client, referral source, or simply a friendly face.
2. Re-enforcing a contact you just made off-line (or even on-line) by offering to connect with them on LinkedIn.com (and sending them a connection request as part of your follow-up with them to re-enforce it). This will help both parties remember some of the professional details of the other person and increase the likelihood of actually staying in touch.

Good luck!

Have you found it helpful to re-connect with your professional network more centrally and formally? Have you discovered a useful technique, approach, strategy, or tool that others should know about? How did you find this post helpful in showing you some new ways to re-connect and cultivate your professional network? Share your thoughts by posting a comment attached to this post.

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Originally published on December 7, 2010, with minor revisions.