A New Year Challenge: Are You Focussing On The Things That Matter?

In NHS management, there’s always pressure to hit targets. As a senior person in your practice, PCN or ICB, you’ll often be involved in discussions about planning and strategy; the challenge comes however, in finding the time to effectively implement changes.

“In the end, a strategy is nothing but good intentions unless it’s successfully implemented.”

Clayton Christensen.

I’m currently reading Stephen R. Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; a book I cannot recommend enough. It was published in 1989, but is still incredibly relevant to how we work today. In this post, I’d like to focus on Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Time Management Matrix, which was popularised by Covey in this very book.

You may already be familiar with this simple matrix, which uses a quadrant diagram to help you to prioritise your workload and identify any time thieves. Every task you complete on a daily basis will fall into one of these quadrants (I have renamed these quadrants for industry relevance):

Quadrant 1: Urgent and Important Tasks:

Deal with them: These pressing tasks are deadline driven and will negatively impact you or the organisation if they are not handled swiftly. Looking at it from a primary care lens, it is demand.

Quadrant 2: Important and Not Urgent:

Dedicate time to them: You should be spending a lot of your time here. This is where you do your planning, strategizing and implementing; any time spent in this quadrant, should eventually free up time in the others.

Quadrant 3: Urgent and Not Important:

Divert them elsewhere: It’s not to say that tasks in this quadrant aren’t important at all, it’s just that they are not important for YOU to complete. You must identify these tasks and delegate them to ensure they are completed by the person who is actually responsible.

Quadrant 4: Not Important and Not Urgent:

Dismiss them: If a task is not important and not urgent, then why are you doing it at all? This quadrant will be filled with procrastination, avoidance, trivial emails and calls.

“Being busy and being productive are two different things.”

Anonymous

Below are some examples of where tasks you are familiar with, may sit in the quadrants:

Analysing Your Results:

The two quadrants which are commonly confused are Q1 and Q3. It can be tough identifying tasks which are important/urgent to the practice, but not for you to do as a senior member of staff. This is why you must be brutal with your categorising; you’ll likely discover that some of your current daily tasks actually belong in somebody else’s Q1.

Keeping the practice floor clean for example, is important, but it’s not for a manager to do. Ensuring your consulting rooms are fully stocked should be completed by someone else and not you. You will also likely be spending too much time in Q1 and Q3 at the expense of Q2 – which if you wish to make changes to systems and processes at your work place, is by far the most valuable quadrant to be in.

The New Year Challenge:

My challenge to you over the Christmas period, is to spend some time thinking about your own daily activities and which quadrant they fall into. Please click here to download a blank template to collate your findings.

I completely appreciate that demand in primary care is off the scale at the moment and probably will be for the foreseeable, but if there was more focus on Q2 activities, Q1 activities could be improved to be more efficient and save time; all minute’s matter and accumulate.

Bottom line, if you wish to have more time to make workplace improvements, you’re going to have to invest a little of your time NOW. Participating just this once could pay you back in ‘time’, tenfold - and that’s got to be worth your investment.

Are you now entirely comfortable you are clear on your strategy, and that your work is in line with it? Did you identify activities in your day which fall into Q3 and 4 which you could delegate or stop doing altogether? Did you find the experience enlightening? What will you do differently in 2023?

Have a go and report back! I’d love to hear how you got on.

Tel: 07803736911

Email: [email protected]

In the next issue, we’ll be looking at your results from this exercise and helping you to prioritise your tasks, so you have more time for Q2 activities.

“Either run the day or the day runs you.”

Jim Rohn