Managing Time
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The following two-by-two matrix—popularized
by productivity expert Stephen Covey—will help you
prioritize your tasks based on their importance and
urgency. When examining an item on your to-do list
or assessing a new task that you’ve just been assigned,
decide if it’s urgent (needs to be done soon) or not ur-
gent, and whether it’s important (will have a big im-
pact) or unimportant, and then apply these preestab-
lished rules.
1. Urgent and important. These are the cri-
ses and deadlines that you have to deal with
throughout the course of the week. Say there’s
a problem with a product that you oversee, the
website that you help maintain, or a big client
that you handle. These should always be your
highest priority.
2. Not urgent ...