Leadership
for Saints,
Part 15:
Planning the Work, Working the Plan
by
Rodger Dean Duncan and Ed J. Pinegar
Great leaders have a
clear vision of what they want to accomplish. And because they know
it’s often easier to conceive than to deliver, they invest
plenty of energy in organizing and planning and executing. They
tend to be very deliberate in their use of the finite resource called
time.
You’ve probably
noticed that “time poverty” is a challenge faced by
every servant who cares. But you don’t need to fall into what
one church worker described as “a chronic state of overwhelm.”
A more strategic use of your time enables you to serve with more
passion and less panic. Making time decisions on the basis of mission
and values boosts effectiveness and reduces guilt. Service then
feels like the blessing it is instead of the burden it was.
It was the Spanish novelist
Cervantes who reminded us that “by the street of By-and-By,
one reaches the House of Never.” The street of By-and-By,
like another metaphorical thoroughfare, is paved with good intentions.
Our progress and performance are frequently hindered by procrastination
or frustration. Opportunity is lost.
Fortunately,
a carefully crafted mission statement (as we described in Part
11—a living document that can grow right along with you)
can help you reach “the House of Now.” Good planning
can also play a vital role in the quality of your marriage and family
life.
Even for a seasoned worker,
receiving and accepting a call to serve in the Church can be an
intimidating experience. Most of us have a wide range of priorities
tugging at us – our families, our friends, our community obligations,
our occupations, our need for physical exercise, our determination
to keep up with our scripture study. We have only so many hours
in a day, and a lack of balance in handling these priorities can
launch us on a guilt trip and hamper our effectiveness.
This is why we so strongly
recommend crafting a personal mission statement—a mission
that motivates.
Time Management Matrix
In conjunction
with your personal mission statement, a process that can help you
bring better focus and balance into your life is to examine—precisely—how
your time is used. Many time management specialists refer to the
Time Management Matrix.
This is a simple box
divided into four equal portions or quadrants. Notice that each
quadrant is numbered and labeled.
Something that falls
into Quadrant 1 is both Urgent and Important. It demands immediate
attention. If you’re a Sunday School president and a teacher
fails to show up on Sunday, you are faced with an urgent and important
matter. If you’re a bishop and a married couple in the ward
suddenly notifies you they are getting a divorce, you have a Quadrant
1 issue on your hands. If you’re a parent and your teenager
announces she’s running away from home, you know full well
what “urgent” and “important” feel like
when they happen at once.
Quadrant 3 consists of
those time-consuming activities that are Urgent but Not Important.
This would include interruptions such as a ringing doorbell and
even some meetings that are regularly on your schedule but have
begun to lose their value.
Quadrant 4 includes those
activities that are Not Urgent and Not Important. Much of what falls
in this quadrant shouldn’t even be done at all.
Quadrant 2 could be called
the “power” quadrant. This is where the most productive
activities occur. Quadrant 2 activities are Not Urgent, but they
are Important. They include such things as planning, prevention,
bridge painting (strengthening relationships), steward development
and pursuing opportunities.
In this context, “Urgent”
signifies something that appears to require immediate attention.
“Important” signifies an activity that contributes to
your mission and your significant goals.
Some people
find themselves forced to expend an inordinate amount of their time
on Quadrant 1 activities—crises and pressing problems. They
are fire-fighters, constantly dousing the flames of problems that
are mostly preventable. Investing more in Quadrant 2 activities—planning,
prevention, steward development, etc.—tends to shrink Quadrant
1, preventing the fires of crisis.
In fact, we might look
at the Time Management Matrix in this way. Quadrant 1 is the “symptom”
quadrant. It is here that we see the symptoms of our poor time management.
Symptoms include missed deadlines, poor meetings, low motivation,
weak performance. Quadrants 3 and 4 are the “cause”
quadrants. Time spent in Quadrants 3 or 4 inevitably results in
less that desirable performance.
Remember, regardless
of your education, experience, age or any other factor, you still
have only 24 hours a day. Every minute invested in Quadrant 3 or
Quadrant 4 is a minute that’s no longer available for investing
in Quadrant 2.
When we neglect Quadrant
2, Quadrant 1 grows.
It’s that simple.
When we neglect the activities represented in Quadrant 2, we seem
to face more crises, more problems, more “fires” that
must be extinguished.
The key to effective
management of our time, then, is to say “no” to Quadrant
3 activities and to say “Yes” to Quadrant 2 activities.
We solve our time management problems by giving priority to Quadrant
2 activities – those that may not be Urgent but which are
clearly Important.
Quadrant 2 activities
take a variety of forms. The most important, of course, includes
any and all activities that strengthen our relationship with the
Lord.
For the active Church
worker, they also may include planning a Relief Society enrichment
meeting or a bishopric meeting or a Sunday School in-service lesson.
They might include conducting a careful stewardship interview with
a newly-called servant, giving the worker a detailed understanding
of the responsibilities and expectations associated with the assignment
(see more about this in later installments on Stewardship Delegation).
They might include a carefully planned regimen of physical fitness
to increase energy and vitality and to reduce stress. They can include
pleasure-reading or concert-going or any other worthy pursuit that
brings needed balance to our lives.
It’s a Matter of Leverage
Don’t
expect Quadrant 2 ever to eliminate the other three quadrants completely.
That’s simply not reality. But with a careful and persistent
application of your Mission Statement and with a more deliberate
strategy in your planning, you’ll discover that you’re
getting much more leverage from your time.
You’ve used leverage
before. Remember playing on the teeter-totter in school? If the
child on the other end was heavier than you, you simply moved the
fulcrum (the center point carrying the entire load) closer to the
heavier weight. That slight move affected the physics of the situation.
You can use the same
principle in managing your time and responsibilities. As your load
changes (your responsibilities increase), you face the frustration
of being unable to lift the load.
Focusing on Quadrant
2 activities is the same as moving the fulcrum. Quadrant 2 activities
provide the leverage with which you can lift your load.
Remember, part of that
leverage is saying “no” to Quadrant 3 activities—those
that seem urgent but that in fact are not very important.
Your personal mission
statement will help you decide.
Quotes to Remember
Prepare and
perform are the key words in how we will improve our time in this
life. – Joseph B. Wirthlin
The secret of
success is constancy to purpose. —Benjamin Disraeli
The wise use of time helps to fit us for eternity. – Neal
A. Maxwell
One of the most
serious human defects in all ages is procrastination, an unwillingness
to accept personal responsibility now. – Spencer W.
Kimball
The soul that
has no established aim loses itself. —Montaigne
We are not endeavoring
to get ahead of others but only to surpass ourselves. – Hugh
B. Brown
Life gives to
all the choice. You can satisfy yourself with mediocrity if you
wish. You can be common, ordinary, dull, colorless; or you can channel
your life so that it will be clean, vibrant, progressive, useful,
colorful, rich. – Spencer W. Kimball
Life’s
tactical choices actually present the opportunity to our moral agency.
Such constitute the calisthenics of choice. The chief impediment,
however, is our lack of full spiritual alignment. – Neal
A. Maxwell
Choices are
the hinges of destiny. —Edwin Markham
Time management
is really self-management and discipline in how we manage ourselves
in the time allotted. It involves making choices, and choosing how
to use that time that is sometimes difficult. – Joseph
B. Wirthlin
Success requires
a lot of careful planning and you are here to form these plans and
make decisions to carry you forward in life. – Howard
W. Hunter
Note: The
excerpts of Leadership for Saints posted on Meridian are only a
fraction of the contents of this 349-page book. To learn more about
this ground-breaking book and to order copies, click
here.
© 2002
by Rodger Dean Duncan & Ed J. Pinegar
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