How to use the four-quadrant method to improve work efficiency

The four-quadrant method divides things into four quadrants from two dimensions of importance and urgency, namely:

In order to improve work efficiency, we need to classify daily work according to these four standards, and each classification adopts different strategies to deal with it.

This kind of work is the most important, such as the important tasks assigned by the leader temporarily, and the sudden major failures of customers. All these require us to immediately put down what we are doing to deal with these unexpected things. However, this conflicts with the original work arrangement and may lead to the delay of the original work plan.

In order to cope with this part of the work in time, my personal approach is to arrange the work plan not to be too full and reserve some allowance, so that our original work plan will not be greatly affected by sudden emergencies. The proportion of reserved workload can be determined according to the situation of the post, and the post with more emergencies has more reserved allowance.

In addition, it is also possible to reserve a deposit, but there is no emergency. At this time, we can also plan part of the work in advance and use the deposit to complete it.

There is a joke saying, "Where does the brick hurt?" The answer is "on someone else's head".

This kind of thing is generally discovered by others and is of low importance to us. For example, the customer said that there was going to be a meeting soon and needed help to sort out a piece of material. It's urgent, but it doesn't help our overall work much.

This kind of thing is usually trivial and needs comprehensive judgment. If the customer is important, you may need to upgrade things to the first quadrant; If the customer is not important and conflicts with our original work plan, we can only arrange it later or seek help from other resources.

In addition, I suggest that you can consciously arrange this kind of work in advance. If customers often need meeting materials, then we can arrange this part of the work in advance in the schedule and send the required materials to customers before the meeting to avoid cramming.

In short, we should learn to avoid this kind of thing in advance, learn to refuse when necessary, and minimize the interference of this kind of work.

If it is neither important nor urgent, it has no meaning of existence. We should try our best to delete this part of the work from our work list.

This division of labor has a far-reaching impact on our future. For example, we should accumulate strength to guide a major strategic transformation, or plan to learn a new technology to pave the way for future work. But because these things can't be completed in a short time, they are easily occupied by other things.

For this kind of work, my approach is to make a medium-and long-term timetable, divide the big study or work tasks into small tasks, and arrange fixed time to do this part of the work every day or week. Unless it is disturbed by major events in the first quadrant, other priorities are arranged after the fourth quadrant. In addition, we can also use some external resources to form a certain pressure to help us complete the task better.

I remember taking the PMP certification in the second half of last year, and the training class stipulated to go to school every other weekend. Although I was very busy at work during that time, I also worked overtime on several weekends. Once, I worked overtime in the field until 2 am on Friday, went back to the hotel to sleep for 3 hours, and got up at 6 am to catch the train back to Shanghai for training. It is this kind of external pressure that makes us devote ourselves to our study better, and finally get the certificate with the result of 5A.

I suggest that from now on, work should be classified according to the four-quadrant method, and coping strategies should be set for each quadrant to make work easier and more efficient.