When General Dwight D. Eisenhower became the leader of the European front in World War II, we can only imagine the demands made on his time. While we are each given only 24 hours in a day, what we do with those hours often is the difference between victory and defeat.
The challenge we all face is how to prioritize the tasks we are dealing with each and every day.
Start with a to-do list or pile of emails. Put them in four stacks or quadrants, known as the Eisenhower Matrix.
In the first stack, include everything urgent and important. These are the things you need to do right away. These are urgent tasks requiring your immediate attention. These items have severe consequences if not addressed.
In our industry, items in this pile could include a credit application being processed in App One, funding delays or an employee issue. Another item in this group might be having to handle a trade-in that does not match its description when delivered to the dealership.
Determining the difference between urgent and important is essential within the Eisenhower Matrix. The distinction can help you decide what you need to manage and what you can delegate to another team member.
Issues in this group may be urgent but not important to your position or your scope of influence. Urgent tasks require immediate attention, and immediate action. There are clear consequences if you miss the deadlines.
The second pile should include everything important but not urgent tasks. These are items you need to schedule, such as employee meetings, compliance training or perhaps a phone call to the manufacturer representative.
All these tasks are important but can wait a few hours to manage. Interviewing a potential new employee might be another example.
These tasks help you reach long-term goals, such as staffing up, strategic planning and building a network. Manage these tasks today, when you have time, before you go home. If you cannot get them completed, at least get a good start.
The third stack contains items you can delegate. These are tasks where you can rely on your team. Many hands make light work, as the saying goes. The greatest gift of having a solid team is delegating tasks to them.
Examples of tasks that you can delegate include checking in a used unit or verifying a payoff on a trade before a new RV delivery. Other examples might involve investigating new software programs or vetting a new product or service.
Team members can manage many issues that do not require senior management’s attention.
Staff love to help senior management. To your team, taking on a task is an opportunity to learn, grow and highlight their individual talents. By addressing tasks and moving forward in an honest, ethical manner within the company guidelines, employees can free senior management to focus on actions only they can do to grow the business.
Finally, the last stack includes the leftovers. These are all the things you need to delete. After you assign tasks to the first three quadrants, you will discover a few leftover items. These items were not urgent, nor were they very important. Although these tasks may be important to someone, they are not important to moving your business forward. Delaying a response to these items often will make them a nonissue. You can delete them, or they simply drop off the radar screen by themselves.
I have seen some people use different colored folders to separate tasks at hand. I also have seen people make lists of A, B, C and D (for delete). The common thread is each matrix contains four categories. Each category should contain only three or four (maximum) items.
The person reviewing the tasks, assignments and day’s work plan usually arrives at work early. This way they can enjoy a quiet cup of coffee, hot chocolate or tea and assign a priority level to each daily task.
The next step is to first work through all the A category, then tackle the B category. Next, follow up on the delegated items via email or telephone. By day’s end, most tasks will be handled. The remaining category is the D. You will either delete these tasks or move them to the C category and delegate them to someone else.
If you wonder whether tasks move from one category to another during the course of a day, the answer is yes. Life is fluid, and depending on the issue, the customer and the employee, tasks can move from urgent to a nonissue in the blink of an eye. Tasks also can move from the unimportant pile to something urgent, depending on the circumstances.
A best practice to follow is to keep two lists of tasks to manage. One list will contain personal tasks and one will include work-related items.
You will notice the work-related tasks and personal tasks have different timelines and commitments for your time and resources.
Overseeing the little, quick tasks first is the best option. For example, if you need to deliver bad news to anyone, do so soon. Bad news never improves with age.
Try to keep each category limited to four items. Doing so should clean up your document piles and emails. Four tasks are manageable, but 597 tasks are overwhelming, even to the best of us. The key is to stay on top of these tasks and not let them build up.
Everyone, including senior management, needs time to recharge and reconnect with those they love. In short, everyone requires a vacation away from work, without the stress of wondering what office mess will be waiting when we return.
Education is ongoing. Training is an investment in your future if you implement the lessons. A staff that knows what is expected and what boundaries are in place is more productive. Your team can be more efficient than others who spend time guessing what to do next.
Eisenhower used this matrix system during the war and when he was in the White House. The quadrants helped distinguish the items requiring his immediate attention.
I would encourage you to try this easy system in the first 10-20 minutes of your day. Set yourself up for success rather than drowning under a sea of emails and voicemails. Delegate when you can do so. Share the load.
Jan Kelly is an educator and consultant, convention speaker and writes frequently for industry publications. For information about educational venues or joining an F&I 20 group, visit www.JLKelly.com.
