Are you a student trying to balance ALL of the following things?
-school and homework
-studying and extra classwork
-student council, honor society, or other student groups
-a sports, music, or drama involvement
-your community and service involvements
-family and personal commitments
-your friendships
It can be baffling!
Recently, I had to turn to a resource that I learned of MANY, MANY years ago at MASC/MAHS workshops as a student. It was neat to see that something like this stood the test of time, and made its way into my life as an adult. It's called the Importance/Urgency Grid. It's a simple task--but one that can put EVERYTHING that you need to balance in perspective!
Take a look at the picture on the right. This is an example of how to set up your grid. What you will need in preparation is:
1.) A list of ALL of your time commitments. (We'll call them "to-do's")
2.) A pen and pad of paper (I know, no smartphone app...yet!)
3.) About 10-15 minutes of free time with no distractions.
Copy the two arrows onto your pad of paper. You can even copy the words if you wish! This grid shows us that there are two basic parts to every tasks that you might have as a student leader.
--First, is urgency. Everything has a deadline. Certain things--such as an upcoming test, or event for your student group have deadlines that are easier to see. Others, like a goal to run a certain distance, or to eat healthier might be harder to define, but equally important.
-- Second, every task has importance. Where (in the scheme of your life) does this task fit in? Issues of placing priorities in order of importance depends on many factors, including your personal well-being (eating healthy becomes more important if you feel ill), your values (are you a person who thinks a 4.0 is the most important thing, or is it something else?), and the events around you (a recent family crisis or friendship issue may move these components up in importance at different times).
Take your list of "to-do's". Take a moment and determine where they fit on EACH the importance AND urgency axis. Wirte that task right ON the grid where it stands. Do this for each of your items, judging them relative to each other. (That means, if many things become VERY important--than each of them shift down the axis just a bit).
Your tasks will fall into one of the four squares of the grid, we will call them "quads". The four quads help us as leaders to decide which tasks to do first, which to spend the most time on, and which we can set aside for the time being.
Quad One:Important AND Urgent tasks:
These tasks should be the FIRST ones that you schedule to make time for. They have the quickest deadlines, and the most importance to your life. These tasks might occupy a LOT of time, so it is important to be diligent when working on them--schedule a reasonable time-table for yourself.
Quad Two:Important BUT NOT Urgent tasks:
We all have things in our life that are very important to us, but might not take precedent over things that need to be done RIGHT NOW. Long-term projects, end of the term homework or assignments (at the beginning of the term), or even certain social and relationship aspects would fall in this quad. Be sure to make time for them individually AFTER you have made a plan for your tasks of priority (quads 1 and 3).
Quad Three:NOT Important BUT Urgent tasks:
While we may not enjoy certain things--and therefore rank them lower in our scale of importance, there are tasks that have impending deadlines. Try to keep this quad as empty as possible, as you want to keep things of importance in your life. However, if something makes its way into quad 3--schedule time for it just as you would a quad 1 task. Things that end up here can get student leaders in the biggest trouble--since they are hardest to forget about!
Quad Four:NOT Important AND NOT Urgent tasks:
Things that simply occupy your time, with no real purpose or passion end up in quad four. In my experience, student leaders don't tend to keep much in this quad, but there may be simple things such as catching up on a television show that you missed online, or seeing what your friends are up to on Facebook for no real purpose than to look. While these tasks can soak time quickly, use them sparingly, and to your advantage! Had a long day plugging through quad 1 and 3 tasks? Satisfied with your progress? Reward yourself by something from here! Quad 4 is a slippery slope, so be sure to set parameters for yourself, so you don't find your new plan in a state of chaos!
We love helping you with things like this, and as I said--I use them in my day-to-day too! Click here to download an example matrix that you can print and use for yourself! Stay tuned to the Leadership Beat and www.mascmahs.org for more resources, stories, blogs, and tools to help you as a student leader.
