Writing yesterday’s blog on what’s important for churches reminded me of the Time Management Matrix introduced apparently by President (General) Eisenhower and popularized more recently by Steven Covey. Here’s the short version of the matrix.

The idea is NOT to live in Quadrant I, doing only important tasks that are urgent. The idea is to maximize Quadrant II, important tasks that are not urgent so that they don’t become urgent. Here’s a simple example. You should fill your gasoline tank BEFORE it becomes urgent, especially if you’re on the open road! A better example is changing oil. Oil rarely has to be changed today. It can always be put off until tomorrow…until it can’t. If an oil change becomes urgent, you’re likely to blow an engine.

Look at the first heading in Quadrant II: Relationship building. Work on your marriage, for example, NOW. Take the weekends away, even when you have small children. Pay attention to each other.

Build your relationship with God NOW. Don’t wait for a crisis. A pastor used to say, “The waiting room of the hospital Emergency Room is not a good place to work on your theology.”

Caller ID has helped us avoid the artificial urgency of phone calls (Quadrant III). And we should all work to avoid Quadrant IV, the kind of thing Cal Newport talks about in Digital Minimalism, which I reviewed last year.

Jesus seemed to live in Quadrant II. My Navigator friend Skip Gray says that Jesus had a 3 mile per hour ministry. “He didn’t go galloping through Galilee, sprinting through Samaria, or jogging through Judea. He walked wherever he went.”

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him. (Matthew 9.9, NLT)

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5.15, 16, NKJV)