January is over. That time of year when the gym was too crowded and everyone was posting their fleeting resolutions. Not sure about you, but February 1 snuck up on me like a big mogul on a low lit ski run. Ooofff.
But this isn’t a post about resolutions. This is a post inviting you to join me in spending more time in Q2 in Q1. Huh? Q2 – stealing from Stephen Covey’s 4 quadrants of time management – means spending time on activities that are important but not urgent. Things like planning, relationship building, exercise, budgeting, taking a breath. They’re all things we should be doing; instead we let things in Quadrant 3 steal our time. Things like emails, distractions, mindless wandering, too much social media, emails, and more emails. Q2 is sharpening the saw; Q3 is being busy and being busy being busy. And telling people how busy you are.
Resolutions will come and go because we lose motivation and don’t invest the time. My plan in the first quarter of 2017(Q1) is to continue invest more time in Quadrant 2. More planning, less winging it. More reading, less late night TV. More mindfulness, less wandering. I wanted to do it myself before writing about it with all the noise of new year’s resolutions.
So what do Q2 activities look like for me??
- 30-45 minutes on Sundays to plan my week
- reading before bed and finishing 1 book per month
- 4 workouts/week
- 2 date nights per month
- being more diligent with my calendar
- assigned times for email
- quarterly goal setting and budgeting
I’ll admit football being over soon already makes it a lot easier to invest more time in Q2. But the second half of 2016 I was spread too thin and allowing everything to seem urgent. Hopefully it’ll translate into more productivity, less stress, a lot of balance and a couple more blog posts. Stay tuned!
