Recently, I spent a week at a rural CU helping them with their commercial and agriculture loan files. We went through scores of loan files and ended the week with a day and a half of good old-fashioned loan management training. After meeting the various relationship managers and looking at half a dozen files, it became clear to see the various strengths and weaknesses in the organization.
One of the overarching challenges is what I call the “tyranny of the urgent”. This happens when we let our lives be completely dominated by what is screaming the loudest in front of us. I admit that I have fallen into this trap and throughout my life have chosen tasks which are not important over those which demanded immediate attention. Sometimes, this has resulted in haphazard work by putting out the fires but never dealing with long term solutions to move the matches and gasoline in the first place! At times, to my shame, the tyranny of the urgent has reared its ugly head in putting out a fire at work while sacrificing time with my family. In either case, what time we spend in the wrong place, can never be bought back.
Steven Covey divides time management into four quadrants as follows:
• Quadrant 1: things that are important and urgent
• Quadrant 2: things that are important but not urgent
• Quadrant 3: things that are not important but are urgent
• Quadrant 4: things that are neither important nor urgent
You have probably seen these as you have studied leadership and management. Everyone seems to get to the quadrant 1 tasks. Dealing with a kitchen fire, a crying baby, or an irate customer in your lobby would fall into this category. Unfortunately, at times I have wallowed in quadrant 4, dealing with items which are great time wasters. We should strive to find items here that can be removed or minimized because they have little value. Sometimes we stay with the quadrant 4 tasks because they are familiar to us or we are avoiding the hard tasks of dealing with what is important. It could be an avoidance technique while you feel some form of accomplishment on things that really don’t matter at all, but it is accomplishment. If you can eliminate quadrant 4 time and move it to other quadrants, your effectiveness will go up exponentially.
One overriding problem with this CU is they were spending too much time in quadrant 4 which need to be moved. Simple things such as copying the same document to be placed in multiple loan files for the same borrower, instead of using a more effective file management technique, or better, moving this to an electronic format, can help move time out of quadrant 4.
I find that quadrant 3 activities are often great time sucks. The commercial department of the CU acted like the tellers, focusing immediate attention and time upon the person who walks into the door. Yes, this is urgent, but the officers were not taking adequate time and focus to properly manage the credit relationship. Things such as taking time to perform good farm inspections to see the operations and judge the management abilities, or using a well thought out agriculture renewal procedure, went by the wayside as they just oriented their efforts on who stood in front of them. Quadrant 3 time activities must be strongly managed, or they will override all things which are important.
The real jewel of time is quadrant 2. The problem here is these are very important things but are not urgent. On the CU side, this involved setting up good policy and procedures, mentoring younger credit officers, marketing for new borrowers (their largest credits are with producers who are in their 70s), creating a solid pricing strategy, and utilizing technology to manage repetitive tasks. Repeatedly we heard folks at the CU say that they know these items need to be done but they are taking care of urgent things. If this is continued, the very important things are never completed.
On the personal side, some quadrant 2 activities may be developing your spiritual life, personal exercise, adequate risk, proper nutrition, date nights with your spouse, spending good time with your children or grandchildren, journaling, or spending time giving thanks and appreciation to others. You can easily add more time activities to this list. It is easy to skip your workout to get in the office earlier to deal with urgent items or to stay late and miss family supper while you accomplish tasks which really do not move the needle.
The Apostle Paul says in his writings that whatever we sow we will also reap. This is important in time management. If we sow all of our seed in categories that are really not important, we will never accomplish great things which are important. What is important now, is to reflect on how you spend time and to move forward with resolve to invest your time into important things which will last.