Can a Robot Think Critically and Muse Philosophically? Skills for the Future Workforce
February 12, 2025
Pockets of Knowledge and Synergies A learning organization has to ensure that it not only generates knowledge but puts in place mechanisms to ensure that such knowledge is transferred and leveraged for competitive advantage. Often, it is the case that organizations have pockets of individuals possessing knowledge as well as specific teams that are better […]
Performance management is an integral component of talent management that is aimed at ensuring that organizational goals are being met effectively and efficiently through individual and collective performance. It can thus encompass an individual employee, a department, a team, or even a process to build a service or a product. Dr. Aubrey Daniels in late […]
The Different Types of Dismissals and the Conditions Which Precipitate Them How and when do corporates decide to fire employees? Are there any alternatives to dismissing employees? What are the circumstances in which dismissal is the only option and is the best course of action? The answers to these questions lie in the way in […]
Well, each successive generation of employees differs from its predecessors as far as their needs, preferences, expectations from employers, thought process and working style are concerned. However, generation ‘z’ seems to have come from a different planet and differs from all its previous generations in more ways than we might think. And organizations have been […]
There are several internal as well as external factors affecting employee behaviour. Let us go through them in detail: Leadership Managers and leaders play an important role in influencing the behaviour of individuals at workplace. It is the responsibility of leaders to set a direction for team members. In majority of the cases, it has […]
Ideal Work-Life Balance involves an efficient management of professional commitments and responsibilities towards the family as well as society. In a 24/7 schedule of the day, one should ideally work for 8 hours and dedicate 8 hours each to sleep and recreation. But, hardly any of us live in this ideal scenario. Instead the millennial employees spend more than 12 hours at work with little or no time for recreation and minimum possible sleep.
Many of us keep cribbing that we hardly find time for doing those things which we would love to do or hardly have time for taking care of the personal commitments because of the pressures or demands at work. Does it mean that we have very little or no time for such commitments? It talks about nothing but our poor time management skills.
We usually face the dilemma while being encountered with the situation of choosing between urgent and important assignments, because of the issues with prioritization. An efficient time manager would be able to juggle between the urgent and important assignments seamlessly.
Before understanding about the various strategies for effective time management and work-life balance, let’s first understand the time management matrix.
Eisenhower is the key proponent of Time Management matrix, by way of which he has been able to differentiate between urgent and important tasks. As per him, urgent tasks require immediate attention and can set a person into action both physically and mentally. Such assignments may take the forms of urgent e-mails, important phone calls which may demand an immediate attention, pressing assignments involving close deadlines, meetings, huddles, appointments or catching a flight, train or a bus, etc.
On the other hand, important tasks are those which need not be urgent in nature but may have long term implications. Important tasks should be handled by paying utmost attention and taking time for arriving at certain decisions related to strategic or crucial matters.
According to Stephen Covey, we should devote less of our time to tasks which not so important regardless of their urgency, but focus spending a quality time on those tasks which may not be urgent but are high on the importance parameter. Planning out time in this manner will perhaps reduce the perils of poor time management. Let's analyze the four quadrants individually and the strategies which should be followed for ensuring effective time management:
Activities which fall under the Quadrant I category are highly critical and must receive the top priority. Spending a lot of time on activities which come under the quadrant I category, may lead to increase in the stress levels and burnout. By focusing more on activities in the Quadrant II, one can reduce the burden on quadrant I in the long run and avoiding the unimportant or time-wasting activities in Quadrant III and Quadrant IV.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *