Prioritising for success / The importance of understanding importance

The Covey time management quadrant divides tasks by two axes: urgency and importance. The premise is that most people's time is dominated by the urgent regardless of whether it is also important, and that the genuinely important - long-term development, strategic thinking, things that matter but do not press - tends to get deferred. The diagram below illustrates the grid.

How a person uses the quadrant depends on their role. Working closely with customers has always been the first priority in my time at Microsoft, and what has come to be described as customer obsession is not a new principle so much as a consistent orientation that was already present in the work.

As success accumulates and roles become more senior, demand on time shifts. The natural pattern is to absorb more: one project, then two, then several. The primary skill at this stage is context switching - managing urgent tasks while keeping the important ones from drifting into perpetual deferral. This tends to leave little room for anything else. In practice, anything not originating from direct customer work migrates toward quadrant four. Remaining cycles go toward individual development or contribution to internal communities. It is a reasonable balance, but it does not carry much slack.

There is an external factor the Covey model does not make explicit. Managers and skip managers carry their own quadrants, and when tasks are delegated downward, they do not arrive neutrally - they arrive with the urgency and importance classification of the sender, not the receiver. I call this the envelope effect. Before delegation occurs, the quadrants look like this:

With the envelope effect in play:

The delegated tasks - typically framed as initiatives or stretch activities - are assumed by the sender to land in quadrant one: urgent and important. For anyone already managing a full load of customer work, this creates immediate tension. Anything not directly tied to customer activity tends to move toward quadrant two initially, then toward quadrant four as time progresses. The conflict becomes visible when priorities need to be ranked:

There is nobody to pass the work along to. When capacity is already committed, the additional item quietly falls to the bottom of the list. By the time a review period arrives - a quarter or six months later - the work has not happened, it has begun to affect the person who delegated it, and the conclusion is that something failed.

It is worth stepping back. Initiatives and stretch activities are, by definition, things that are important but not yet urgent to the manager - or at least they should be. The difficulty is that the corporate environment frequently generates activity for its own sake: visible effort that reads well in reports but does not constitute achievement.

There are patterns that help. The following, applied consistently by both parties, tend to prevent these situations from developing:

The Manager

• Clearly articulate both the importance and rationale behind the need for the activity.

• Set a clear timeline for when it needs to be completed by.

• Take the time to understand what the employee is already doing. Many people have commitments that are not immediately visible. A clear picture of their current and upcoming workload makes it possible to assess whether they will have the capacity to complete the activity within the intended timeframe.

• Understand how this can complement activities that the employee is undertaking, especially in architect roles where we are already context switching between multiple customers. Adding another thing to context switch to, makes things more cognitively difficult.

• Do not confuse activity with achievement. A team visibly engaged in initiatives may look productive from above, but sustained busyness without clear output is not achievement, and in some cases it is actively harmful to the working relationship.

The Employee

• Protect time deliberately. This is straightforward to advise and genuinely difficult to do. J.D. Meier writes well on the subject, including on the value of protected hours in a working week: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jmeier/2012/07/21/time-management-tips-1-add-power-hours-to-your-week/

• Work within the boundaries of your own working pattern. People have different approaches to where the line sits - some are willing to extend hours, others prioritise commitments outside work. The key is not to agree simply because others appear to be doing more.

• Leading on from the point above: it is acceptable to say no. Many organisations sustain a culture where declining additional work feels impossible, but clarity about current commitments is more useful than silent overcommitment. If you are not in a position to take on the activity, say so directly and explain why. If possible, suggest an alternative that would fit better with your current context.

• Over-communicate. Be clear about how the activity is progressing. Highlight obstacles early, and treat the work with the same rigour you would apply to direct customer commitments. A brief weekly update keeps both you and your manager honest about progress.