One’s priorities tell what one finds important. Unfortunately, sometimes, people, especially college students, fail at getting their priorities straight. Yes, I am telling you that you are wrong in what you find important. Randy Pausch explains this visually.
Four Quadrant To-Do
| Due Soon | Not Due Soon | |
|
Important
|
1 |
2 |
|
Not Important
|
3 |
4 |
“Most people sort by order received, or by due date, both are WRONG!”
As one can see, what is important and due soon deserves attention, obviously. Also obvious is that what is not important and not due soon deserves the least attention. Now, most people, after doing everything that is important and due soon, will work on stuff that is unimportant and due soon. But why do something if it’s unimportant? Work on what is important. It is obviously more important than that which is unimportant.
After this work is done, one can feel free to move onto the unimportant stuff. Ideally, if one follows this well, most items will end up in the “important but not due soon” box because one is so efficient that nothing is put off until the last minute.
It is frustrating when people complain to me about not having enough time. Some people find the oddest things to be important and due soon.
Also, people have value and can be prioritized. They see their value to you by evaluating the amount and the quality of the time they spend with you that you allot them.
Or is that just me making the assumption the people think like I do?
That to which the title is referencing.
“Or is that just me making the assumption the people think like I do?”
Bingo. We’re all human which means we’ll always prioritize differently. Logically speaking the table works, sure, but you have to factor the human aspect of it.
Sometimes taking the time to see if an old friend is alive isn’t due soon or logically “important” to your future, career or school but its important because of a personal connection you have to the person or task.
Or maybe you have 3 papers due next week. Ideally, 168 hours minus sleeping and class time is more than enough to get it all done, but again, we’re human. We need to spend time with our friends and family, we need to spend time decompressing (which often involves complaining). We’re not robots, we’re social beings with physical and mental limits.
You can’t just score everything based on four categories and run life like that, it takes out the human aspect of it.
All I’m saying is that I’m tired of people complaining about not having enough time when, in fact, they probably do, but they’re wasting it because they’re not using it efficiently. If you have a system that works, then I’m surely not going to stop you from using it, but if it doesn’t work, perhaps you should consider a new system.