In your day-to-day activities, the things you do with your time can be categorized into, the important, the unimportant, the urgent and unurgent things.
Whatever it is you are doing presently with your time can be categorised into any of these broad category and to this end, Stephen Covey promulgated four quadrants into which various activities that one engages in can be classified.
The four quadrants include the important and urgent, important and not urgent, not important and urgent activities and not important and not urgent activities.
Most students’ activities best fit the third quadrant because most of them engage in tasks that are unimportant and urgent as well. You might be asking what makes up an important task, and maybe you are curious about what quadrant is best to have one’s activities rightly fitted into it, perhaps in school or beyond school.
Simply put, an important task is one that contributes to the advancement of your goals especially your long term goals; it guarantees a better future for you eventually. It is expected of every student to acquire knowledge and sharpen his/her creativity through the new information that they regularly access, it translates to increase a befitting self-value and self-worth.
In the same vein, the best quadrant that a student or any one should ensure their activities fit into is the second quadrant, the quadrant that one gets to perform tasks that are important and are not urgent. When you respond to learning urgently, just as in cramming for an examination, it is very unproductive because the brain is not given the liberty to perform optimally leading to forgetfulness.
The brain is ideally sensitive to urgent task as it stimulates the release of neurotransmitters at those times to block memory and recall, it is however necessary to avoid urgent things at all possible cost by embracing effective time management so one doesn’t operate as a crisis manager.
Students that read and review their subjects at times that examinations are not close operate more in the second quadrant. These students most often do not fall into the ditch of failure academically.
It is thus recommended that students spend 40% of total time, about 10 hours daily investing in study, other activities such as earning, living and giving can take the rest 60%. Plan effectively, if you fail to plan, you will eventually fail.
