What IS Important?

Last week I talked about doing the most important things first. I’ve appreciated the comments made after my last blog entry. Several ladies told of ideas that have helped them.

I have always had a hard time determining what the most important things are.

The thing that has helped me the most, I saw in one of the many books on organization that I read in hopes of becoming more organized. The graphic above is called the “Eisenhower matrix” because President Eisenhower used it, and it really makes sense to me, maybe because I’m such a visual person.

I found a cool video that explains it, probably better than I can. Check it out; it’s only 2:24 minutes long and a great place to start.

So, let’s talk about the matrix for those who are stay-at-home moms. How does it work for you?

I’m going to tell you what things I think fit where, but please recognize that these are just MY priorities. Yours may be entirely different, and that’s ok.

Category 1: Urgent and Important

• Blood! (If there’s blood, you drop everything and tend to it, right?)
• Getting everyone dressed and ready to go to church together. (Urgent because it must be done Sunday morning or you’ll miss it; important because you all need the fellowship and encouragement.)
• Something your husband has asked you to do today. (Self-explanatory, I think.)

Category 2: Important, Not Urgent

• Your time with the Lord (It doesn’t scream at you, but your day goes so much better after it.)
• Exercise (Ah, the big E word!)
• Time with your husband (If you don’t understand this, check out my blog entry on dating your husband.)

Category 3: Urgent, Not Important

• The five dozen cookies the lady from your church called you about today and needs delivered tonight. (I like what the video says about delegating the items in this category. Or instead, this may be the time to practice saying that all important word, “no.”)
• Interrupting a school lesson with your children to get the clothes out of the dryer. (Ok, yes, they’ll wrinkle if you don’t, but maybe you should be doing laundry outside of school time, or better yet, delegate!)

Category 4: Not Urgent, Not Important

• Surfing the Internet without a cause (I agree with the video on this one.)
• Gaming (This is not to say that you can’t take a break and have some fun. If you need to relax, perhaps that needs to be put into Category 2!)

What’s really cool is that, in researching for this blog entry, I’ve found that there are phone apps that use this matrix to help you prioritize. In fact, the video is on a page for one of them–I just realized that today. 😳

Wow! I’m so excited! I’m going to go try them!