Everywhere you go excitement about Christmas is building, and that’s definitely true at our house! All of our kids are done with finals as of today, and it’s finally time to celebrate Christmas. 🙂 It’s a time of flurried activity, but also a reflection about the past and anticipation of the future, and I’ve been thinking about my goal for the New Year.
Many of you know that I am a huge fan of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and have spent many months in 2015 bringing the program to a company I work with – what a great experience!
One of Covey’s 7 habits is to Put First Things First, and I’ve decided that needs to be my goal for 2016 – to consistently put first things first. (Not that I’m going to ignore any of the other habits – you definitely don’t want to do that!)
I just want to make a more intentional effort to put first things first in all areas of my life – living with intention, focusing on my highest priorities, decreasing the time I spend on what’s unimportant, planning before each day, and staying focused when distractions come my way.
I want to focus on what Covey calls Quadrant 2 items the first of every day, both personally and professionally – to prioritize what is truly most important every day in my personal and professional life – to be faithful about prioritizing and planning the coming day the night before, so I can hit the ground running at the start of the day and really get accomplished the most important things.
In case you’re not familiar with the concept of Quadrant 2, it’s a part of Covey’s Time Matrix. There are four quadrants based on what’s Urgent and what’s Important:
- Quadrant 1 is made up of Urgent and Important items – we have to give attention to these tasks
- Quadrant 2 consists of matters that are Not Urgent but truly Important – they are not screaming at you to get done, but are the things that will really make a difference in your life and business based on your highest priorities
- Quadrant 3 is made up of Urgent but Not important items – Covey calls this the quadrant of deception – we think the tasks are important, but they’re really no
- Quadrant 4 is Not Urgent and Not Important activities – total time-wasters!
The reason that we’re closing the 2:10 office from December 19th to January 4th is so we can put first things first this time of year – I want both Carri and I to be able to focus on celebrating Christmas with our families. But there is no way that I could ever just willy-nilly close the office – my clients are WAY too important to me for that!
So I’ve concentrated the last few months on getting an online scheduling system set up and putting many systems in place (check out the Getting Started page of my website), so business can still go on and clients can still be taken care of while I’m taking some time off to focus intentionally on celebrating Christmas and having quality time with my family.
(BTW, I’m SO excited that our whole family will be together for Christmas. We haven’t seen our oldest son for four months – I know that’s not long for many people to be separated from their loved ones, but it’s the longest that our immediate family has ever been apart, and we’re really looking forward to being reunited!)
Wishing you the merriest of Christmases with your families and friends and a new year full of blessings,
