Moving From Crisis Mode to a Calmer Life
Explanation of Stephen Covey's Four Quadrants
Jan 16, 2009 Jennifer Harshman
Working adults have been told that a “normal” life means operating in crisis mode, putting out fires, running on adrenaline and living a treadmill existence. The common perception is that the busier a person is, the more important that person is, but that perception is changing as more people come to understand that the correlation is false. More and more people are exhausted and longing for a better way to do things, and several authors have stepped up to show some ways. One of those ways is the quadrant system taught by Stephen Covey.
Stephen Covey teaches the quadrant paradigm in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as part of one of the desirable habits. A quick walk-through is provided here. See The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People for a more thorough explanation, and for information on all seven of the habits it covers.
Quadrants
Every task or activity falls into one of four quadrants on a graph. Tasks that are both urgent and important (crisis) are in quadrant one, the upper left-hand section of the graph. Those that are important but not pressing (those things people should do but never get around to doing) are in quadrant two, the upper right quadrant. Those things that are urgent but that are not actually important (some events or limited-time offers) are in quadrant three, the lower left-hand segment, and tasks that are neither urgent nor important (filing all those recipes) are in quadrant four, the lower right-hand section.
What is Important
Dr. Covey explains that one’s goal should be to live in quadrants one and two, with an eye toward increasing the percentage of time in quadrant two, but this is not how most people live. Most people live most of their lives in quadrant one and three – running from one urgent task to another, not distinguishing which ones are important. They rarely if ever get to the things that are truly important, but not pressing enough to demand attention.
Why it Usually Doesn’t Happen
A day (or a week) full of adrenaline rushes inevitably leads to exhaustion. Exhaustion makes quadrant four (time wasting) tasks extremely appealing. Instead of attending to things that are truly important, the exhausted person will waste time watching television or playing minesweeper. Who has the energy to teach a room full of young people an important character trait, when they just spent the last five days putting out fires in their department at work? When life is a roller coaster, the things that don’t scream for attention simply don’t get it.
Making the Change
Going from crisis management existence to a calmer, better-managed life isn’t necessarily difficult, but it does require some action. Simple things can make a big difference, especially for the beginner:
- Spending time (as little as one minute) looking ahead at the next day’s (or week’s) agenda each evening.
- Putting a bite-sized chunk of just one of those important-but-not-pressing tasks on the next day’s to-do list.
- Deciding ahead of time how much time to spend on a task (such as napping or watching television).
Planning ahead this way is the start of moving out of crisis mode living (living in quadrants one and three), and into calmer quadrant two living. This allows one to spend more of one's life in the calmer quadrant two. This leads to fewer crises screaming for attention, and a life that is more fulfilling.
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