“The first three habits build upon each other. Habit 1 says, ‘You are the driver, not the passenger.’ Habit 2 says, ‘Decide where you want to go and draw up a map to get you there.’ Habit 3 says, ‘Get there! Don’t let roadblocks knock you off course.’

“Have you ever packed a suitcase and noticed how much more you can fit inside when you neatly fold and organize your clothes instead of just throwing them in? It’s really quite surprising. The same goes for your life. The better you organize yourself, the more you’ll be able to pack in -more time for family and friends, more time for (work), more time for yourself, more time for your first things.”

Sean shares a model called the Time Quadrants, which can help you see whether you are spending your time wisely or not.

As you can see, Q1 is the Procrastinator -everything is urgent and important!

I have personally spent a lot of time in Q1, and I am SO DONE with it! This quadrant is filled with STRESS! Of course things will always come up that are out of our control, but if we are planning ahead in other areas, we’ll be more able to deal with such emergencies.

Skipping to Q3, the Yes-Man, where everything is urgent but not important.

For example, answering the phone while seated at the dinner table with your family. What’s important here? Family time or that telemarketer?

(Sorry mom, but I have also let your call go to voicemail a time or two. I have a “no phones at the table rule”, and it’s important to me to stick to it. But I do always call you back!)

“This quadrant is deceptive because urgent things have the appearance of being important.” But when they’re happening in this quadrant, they are not important.

Q3 is the ultimate people pleaser, doing things that are important to everyone else but not important to you. And you know what they say, when you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.

How often do you say yes, or agree to do something that is not even important to you—at the cost of stressing yourself out?

Making frilly handouts for an activity you’re helping to plan… Volunteering to help with vision screening at the elementary school… Attending a boring meeting… Bringing home-baked goodies to a social, instead of store-bought…

Each of those things are great to do –IF you’re not avoiding more important things to do them.

I’ll admit that it’s hard to say no to people when they ask you nicely, but every time you say “yes” to something, you’re saying “no” to something else.

Just make sure that you’re saying “yes” to the things that are important to you. And sometimes that can look like saying “yes” to things you don’t really care about, because it’s important to you to support certain people.

If my mom were to ask me to help her hand-stitch the lettering on 100 invitations, I would do it! It’s important to me to be there for my family.

However, if I was on a committee that wanted me to help do that same thing, I would have to politely decline.

There is no script written out for what to say yes or no to. You need to get in tune with yourself to make those decisions.

On to Quadrant 4, The Slacker.

The person living is this quadrant just wastes all their time watching TV, playing video games, chatting online, sleeping in until noon, etc. Nothing they do is urgent or important.

Well… perhaps somethings are important, but not in the excess amounts that they do them. For example, sleep is very important, but staying up until 2 AM scrolling Facebook and then sleeping until noon is not the best way to catch your Z’s.

So let’s talk about how to live a life doing what’s important, but not urgent!

We find it in Q2, The Prioritizer!!

This means looking ahead and taking care of things now, before they become a last-minute urgent stress!

A few years ago, it dawned on me that I had a “fear of doing things too early”, as I called it.

I would get the urge to start making Halloween costumes in July and then talk myself out of it, saying that it’s too early.

Knowing that I was going to help at my child’s class Christmas party, I’d start to plan my activity during the first week of November, but again… I’d tell myself to wait until it’s closer.

And wouldn’t you know it, every single time that I told myself I was “too early”, I ended up STRESSING at the last minute, because many other things seemed to pop up and require my attention.

I even had the “fear of being early” to any function or meeting, which usually resulted in being late!

I finally told myself that the next time I feel like taking care of something ahead of time, I WILL do it! And I didn’t care if I was wrapping Christmas gifts in August!

It was just a little mental barrier that I needed to get over, and I’m so glad that I finally did! And I am trying to live in Q2 more and more.

A few things that take place in Q2 include:

• Refuel your vehicle before you’re running on fumes so you can skip the stress of barely making it to the gas station.
• Take time to exercise and renew yourself.
• Put your loved ones first (I hope you include God and yourself as loved ones).
• Plan ahead.

“So in which quadrant are you spending the majority of your time in? 1, 2, 3, or 4? Since, in reality, we all spend some time in each quadrant, the key is to shift as much time as possible into Q2. And the only way you’ll find more time for Q2 is to reduce the amount of time you spend in the other quadrants. Here is how to do that:”

• Reduce your time in Q1 by procrastinating less. Even if you’re not perfect at this, doing anything in advance will make a big difference.
• Practice saying “No” to unimportant activities so you can decrease your time in Q3.
• Remember that Q4 is excessive relaxation, while Q2 is healthy relaxation. Keep doing the activities that you love, just do them in a “Prioritizer” fashion.

Life in Q2 means going to bed with a plan for the next day. Weekly planning is best because it gives you just the right amount of time to focus on without being too narrow or broad.

Covey highly recommends using a planer with a “calendar and space to write down appointments, to-do lists, and goals”.

And I couldn’t be more thrilled to use this opportunity to tell you about my friend Cami’s “Tidbits Day Planner”. I used to work with Cami at the local grocery store when we were in high school, and when I found out she made planners, I thought I would support her in this endeavor. However…

I soon found that I was not supporting HER, rather her planner was supporting MY life!

Yes, any planner will get the job done, but I absolutely love the Tidbits Day Planner because of all the blank spaces that I get to fill in for lists and goals! There is also plenty of space to write my daily schedule, not to mention the feeling of grace and poise that comes with owning such a pretty planner.  I love to just hold it and look at it!

Here is a quick peek at one of the pages.

(And no, this is NOT an affiliate link, haha! I simply love the beauty and function of her planners and want to give you the opportunity to check them out! I know she has a limited amount, so if you want to use it in 2025, don’t wait!)

When you’re planning (no matter what planner you choose), remember to schedule your “big rocks” first, or the things that are the most important. And then the little pebbles will fill in the cracks. And if some of the pebbles get left undone, well…. At least they were the smaller, less important things.

There is more to Habit 3 than just managing your time wisely, but I am going to skip over that for now. If you remember, Habit 3 is called “Put First Things First”, which also includes learning to overcome fear and social pressure.

Find the courage to step out of your comfort zone when your inner voice is telling you to. Stretch and grow yourself. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Go easy on yourself if you find that Habit 3 is hard to adopt. It was found in a survey that it’s the hardest habit of all to live. So let that give you a little more determination to up your willpower (and won’t-power), and also give yourself some grace when you need to try again and again …and again.

As usual, just start with the baby steps!

Baby Steps:

• Set a goal to use a planner for one month. Stick to your plan.
• Identify your biggest time-wasters.
• Are you a “pleaser”, someone who says yes to everything and everyone? If so, have the courage to say no today when it’s the right thing to do.
• If you have a party to plan, a project to do, or any sort of deadline, get started on it today. Just do a little each day.
• Note your 10 most important big rocks for the upcoming week. Now, block out time on your schedule to accomplish each one.
• Identify a fear that is holding you back from reaching your goals. Decide right now to jump outside your comport zone and stop letting that fear get the best of you.
• How much impact does social pressure have on you? Identify the person or people who have the most influence upon you. Ask yourself “Am I being my true self around them, or am I putting on a facade”?

That’s the end of the Private Victory! Next week, we’ll start on the habits that involve other people –the Public Victory!

Best wishes!

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