What’s important in your life right now? How can you encourage each other – and your family – to make progress and be productive?
Do you focus on the important – or only respond to the urgent?
“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
There’s a 4-quadrant time management concept, which is ascribed to the USA’s 34th President. It uses two words – urgent and important – in the 2×2 matrix.
Sometimes you must respond to the urgent – a baby crying, a pot boiling over, the engine light blazing red in your car, or your spouse tersely growling that they need a break. Urgent is a part of real life. However, urgent shouldn’t play the biggest part of real life!
What is important?
First – I want to say, that only you and your spouse can define what’s truly important. And that’s your job as parents. Just like deciding which values your family is living.
Sometimes it takes a bit of discussion for the two of you to agree. However, I believe time spent discussing the topic of “What’s important?”… is important! (Especially before the urgent stuff shows up – as it definitely will. 😉 )
How do you avoid living inside an “urgent, drama-infused space”?
Try the Eisenhower Method
Watch this video, which explains the concept.
- Important/Urgent
- Important/Less Urgent
- Not Important/Urgent
- Not Important/Less Urgent
The video is highlighting a $2.99 smartphone app which uses the concept. Also available is a free desktop version, with just the 4 quadrant to-dos.
Focus on the Important and Not Urgent Quadrant
What is important in a family, and in your life as husband and wife, is going to be different than what happens at work. At work, you usually have those who tell you what needs to be done- and you’ll follow those suggestions or be without your job.
At home – with your spouse – you both need to decide. Which goals are you and your husband or wife pursuing… and which values are you highlighting.
Too often, we go through life just accomplishing the urgent tasks and never getting to the important, but not urgent stuff. Always living in the urgent quadrant translates to feeling like you’re leading a meaning-less life. Stuff gets done, but there’s no lasting impact. There’s no hope for a meaning filled future…
Options in the Important (but not Urgent) Quadrant
- time alone with the Lord
- reading the Bible – pondering – praying
- mission, vision and values as a couple
- goal setting with your spouse
- encouraging each other
- date night with your spouse
- reading life-enriching books
- service – volunteering as a couple
- exercising
- taking a class or learning a hobby
Steven Covey popularized the Eisenhower time management method in his book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Which from this list – or your own list of important items – will you do today? Decide with your spouse to work on something from this list. Now. Today.
Use Your Time Today
One thing that intrigued me about the $2.99 Eisenhower App was their option to use a focus timer for 30 minutes.
Focus is so important.
Yeah. That’s what started this whole blog post. The idea of focusing on what is important.
I can get caught up in all the non-urgent, not important stuff like Facebook, and reading other people’s blog posts, or picking up a book, or just hanging out on Twitter. What’s the trouble with all this activity? Not much gets accomplished. I have little to show for my hours on the computer… Perhaps you might relate? 🙂
I’m determined to improve my ability to focus on what’s important. To this end, I’ll be using the free version of the Eisenhower App (and see how it goes before I purchase the App).
Also I’ve been using an online music/sound website called Focus@Will – they have a free 15 day trial!
I like the Ambient options of music – Water sounds – and Cafe Noise. FocusatWill.com’s idea is that if you listen to the right music/sounds, you can improve your productivity.
If you’re interested, they even explain the science behind their concept on their website. (I’m just having fun using a different sound/music for each half hour – right now I’m listening to Kora Beta on Medium Energy level.) You can adjust their 22 sound/music options to a high, medium or low energy level. It’s interesting… Check it out!
This post contains affiliate links.
How do you encourage each other to be productive in the important tasks?
Are there ways you and your spouse use that make it easier to focus on what’s important?
Leave a comment – let’s share! I’m interested!
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How can you make sure those values you live – together as husband and wife– are consistent, cohesive, and have a lasting impact?
Values help you prioritize - decide when and what to do in a situation, and then remain consistent in all your decisions.
Check out the guide and workbook for couples!
Also includes an audio version!
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This is a great article for this time of year. Thank you for taking the time to impart some of this wisdom and highlight many tools in the challenge to focus on what is important. I do not use apps or many other technical tools, but I know many do and will appreciate this information.
Thanks for stopping in, Hillary. You’re right – this time of year is a great time to look at how we handle areas in our life. Hope your new year is going well!
yes. yes to all of this. Just yes.
Oh, thanks so much for your encouragement, Stacey! 🙂
What a helpful article! I appreciate the app resource for actually using the concept since I always have my phone handy. Passing this on to some of my girl friends who struggle with living a balanced life.
Our phones can be a wonderful asset, can’t they! Thanks for passing this on!
Well-written and important message.
Thank you for stopping in, Amy – and for your kind words. Wishing you a great year ahead!
As my husband is starting seminary, he actually has some assignments where we need to sit down together and start planning out what is most important. Also, the time constraints of him being in school and working full time, and myself running a blog have caused the need for us to sit down and pick the most important things for our family. We have prioritized some things, such as his time to engage in play with our daughter alone (which allows me to have personal quiet time with God). Because of flexible schedules we’ve had to get creative in how to allow ourselves to maintain everything we feel is most important. And we’ve learned the value in going back and evaluating how things are working and adjusting as needed!
Good article that causes one to pause and look at their lives. Sometimes we can live life unconscious. Not aware of how we are living our lives. How by our actions we show people what we value. Excellent tools too to help with an assessment of our lives.