What’s on my mind? Proactive. The non-urgent but important. Quadrant 2 activities.
Here’s a small example. My California RE broker renewal takes 45 hours and 9 courses. I don’t need it for a while, yet why wait?
By the inch, it’s a cinch. By the mile, it’s a pile!
The four quadrants
Stephen Covey popularized a simple way to sort everything on your plate:
- Quadrant 1: Urgent and important. The deal that’s falling apart, the inspection deadline, the agent about to leave.
- Quadrant 2: Not urgent but important. Prospecting, coaching, recruiting, education, planning, relationships, health.
- Quadrant 3: Urgent but not important. Most interruptions, many emails, other people’s priorities.
- Quadrant 4: Not urgent and not important. Scrolling, busywork, the things we do to avoid the hard things.
Why Quadrant 2 is where careers are built
Quadrant 1 will always find you. Nobody has to remind you to save a closing. Quadrant 2 never shouts. Nobody calls to say, “You haven’t checked in with your top agent in six weeks,” until that agent calls to say they’re leaving. Then it’s Quadrant 1, and it’s often too late.
The same goes for recruiting. If you only recruit when you lose someone, you’re always recruiting from behind. The leaders who grow steadily recruit every week, when there’s no pressure, because that’s when the best conversations happen.
How to protect Quadrant 2 time
- Schedule it first. Put prospecting, coaching and recruiting on the calendar before the week fills up. What isn’t scheduled gets crowded out.
- Do it early. Quadrant 2 work done before 10 a.m. usually gets done. After lunch, the urgent takes over.
- Shrink Quadrants 3 and 4. Every interruption you automate, delegate or eliminate is time you get back for the work that matters.
- Review weekly. Look back at your calendar on Friday. How many hours went to Quadrant 2? Make next week’s number bigger.
How are you investing in your expertise and staying ahead of the game?
Framework: This post is part of Action Produces Data, the coaching framework for consistent production: take the next right action, track it and let the results, not opinions, guide what you do next.
Want help applying this in your brokerage? Book a 30-minute conversation with Mark at calendly.com/mjsession.
3 thoughts to “Quadrant 2 Activities”