How to decide on whats important and urgent (without a to-do list)

How to decide on whats important and urgent (without a to-do list)How to decide on whats important and urgent (without a to-do list)Dwight Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States between the years, 1953 to 1961.Before this, Eisenhower was a five-star general in the United States Army and served as supreme commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II- including the successful invasion of France and Germany from the wildwestfilm Front.Eisenhower also found time for his personal hobbies including reading, poker, oil painting, golf and also served as the President of Columbia University.In his lifetime, Eisenhower accomplished a lot and sustained high productivity for many years until his death.Today, his methods of productivity have been studied extensively and used successfully by top performing entrepreneurs, professionals, athletes, artists and so on.His best-known technique, the Eisenhower Matrix, is a simple, powerful tool that will help you to better prioritize your tasks- distinguish between what is important and urgent- and boost your productivity today.Heres how it works.The Eisenhower MatrixThe fruchtwein urgent decisions are rarely the most important ones.- Dwight EisenhowerFirst popularized in the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (audiobook), The Eisenhower Matrix, also known as Urgent-Important Matrix, consists of four quadrants that help you to decide on and prioritize tasks by urgency and importance.The four quadrants of the Eisenhower Matrix are as followsUrgent and important (tasks to do immediately).Important, but not urgent (tasks to schedule later).Urgent, but not important (tasks to delegate to someone else).Neither urgent nor important (tasks to eliminate).Heres what the Eisenhower Matrix looks like.Each quadrant of the Eisenhower matrix can be broken down as follows (in order from top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right)Quadrant 1 Important but not urgentTasks in this quadrant dont have a deadline round the corner, but they are important for achieving your goals.Examples include exercising, journaling, studying, family time.Ideally, we should spend majority of our time on tasks in this box,Quadrant 2 Urgent and importantTasks in this box of the Eisenhower matrix include deadlines, crises and problems that require your immediate attention and are also important for achieving your goals.Examples include responding to urgent emails, work deadlines and so on.Tasks in this box should be proactively eliminated in advance, when they were previously in the quadrant 1 box.Quadrant 3 Not important and not urgentTasks in this box of the Eisenhower matrix are typically time-wasting activities that dont help you to achieve your long-term goals.Examples include Mindlessly browsing through social media, surfing the web, playing video games and watching TV.If were being honest, we often spend the majority of our time on activities in this box. Ive personally struggled to stay focus ed and avoid the distractions of YouTube videos on the web.What has worked for me isnt necessarily eliminating activities in this box, but instead minimizing and using them as a reward for my productive hours during the day.Quadrant 4 Urgent but not importantActivities in this box of the Eisenhower matrix are generally urgent interruptions that dont help us to achieve our goals.Examples include responding to urgent emails, phone calls or messages from friends, family or work colleagues.The danger with activities in this box, is that they can often deceptively appear to be quadrant 2 activities.They also give us a sense of achievement and satisfaction from crossing them off our to-do list, when in reality we havent made much progress.Now that weve reviewed the four quadrants of the Eisenhower matrix, heres how you can make the most of the Eisenhower matrix.The difference between urgent and importantThe key to making the most out of the Eisenhower Matrix work is distinguishing between what is urgent and what is important.Urgent tasks are typically time sensitive and require our immediate attention. They force you to be reactive, anxious and stressed.Conversely, important tasks put you in a proactive and strategic mode. They contribute to your long-term goals and give you mora time to make better decisions- to avoid stupid decisions.The more time you spend on activities that are important but not urgent, the more proactive and productive you will be.The best ways Ive found to distinguish between urgent and important tasks is toDefine and write down what is important i.e. life goals, core values andPractice self awareness to identify urges or impulses to react to a given task. These tasks are typically urgent.Delegation and OptimisationWe accomplish all that we do through delegation, either to time or to other people Stephen CoveyWhat happens when you dont have enough time for an activity or cant decide how to fit them all inside the Eisenhower matrix?Is there a w ay to maximize our productivity using the Eisenhower matrix, with the least time and effort spent?The answer to these lies within the use of optimization and delegation.Delegation involves giving away the completion of a task to something or someone else i.e. booking a driver instead of walking, a colleague writing a report or email on your behalf etc.Optimization involves the elimination of anything that is not absolutely necessary for the completion of a goal i.e. cutting out fillers or fluff from a piece of writing, cutting out clients or customers that dont add value etc.Heres how it works, illustrated within this useful 2-step question checklistQ1 (the optimisation question) Does this task need to be done?If yes, go to Q2.If no Eliminate the task entirely.Q2 (the delegation question)- Can this task be delegated to someone else to do it for me?If yes, delegate.If no, assess if the task fits into your life goals and treat accordingly.For example, I used to spend hours over the w eekend cleaning my house until running through this checklist and finally delegating important cleaning to a professional cleaner. Although this costs money, it has saved me a lot of time and energy that wouldve been spent cleaning my house.The what, not the how of productivityThe most important part of improving the productivity in our lives isnt the how, its the what i.e What do I actually need to be doing right now? What do I need to delegate and what do I need to eliminate?The Eisenhower matrix is a powerful tool that keeps you accountable to working on what is truly important to you. It forces you to think about what is urgent and important, and helps you to stay in a proactive mode of thinking.By driving a focus on the right whats for you, the Eisenhower matrix could help you to eliminate time-wasting activities and improve your productivity for a lifetime.Mayo Oshin writes atMayoOshin.com, where he shares practical self-improvement ideas and proven science for better health, productivity and creativity.To get practical ideas on how to stop procrastinating and build healthy habits, you can join his free weekly newsletterhere.A version of thisarticleoriginally appeared atmayooshin.comas The Eisenhower matrix How to Decide on Whats Important and Urgent (Without a To-Do List).Footnotes1. Ideas on the Eisenhower matrix are from Stephen Coveys book, The 7 habits of highly effective people.2.The format of this Eisenhower matrix is an adaption of the original. Within the original Eisenhower matrix, the axis moves in the opposite direction i.e. quadrant 1 is urgent and important, and quadrant 4 is not important, not urgent. Regardless, the general concept is still intact.

Automatic Sweeps in Banking and Brokerage

Automatic Sweeps in Banking and BrokerageAutomatic Sweeps in Banking and BrokerageAn automatic sweep is a programmed order to execute standing instructions that move funds from one account to another. This serves as a convenience for the client, relieving him or her of the need to enter separate instructions each time a transfer of funds is required or desired, or to write and deposit checks. Many applications of automatic sweeps exist, some of which are described below. A Banking Scenario Your bank checking account could have an automatic sweep feature that moves funds to a higher-yielding deposit account such as a money market account (not to be confused with a money market mutual fund) when the balance goes above a given level, one either set by the bank or chosen by you as the depositor. Additionally, the sweep feature may also work in the opposite direction, moving funds from the higher-yielding account to your checking account when the latters balance has dipped below a spe cified level. The Brokerage Scenario Within securities brokerage firms, a traditional cash account pays no interest on cash balances, encouraging clients who are not active traders to keep such balances close to zero. To spare the client and the financial advisor the inconvenience and costs associated with manual withdrawals of funds (especially if the client is to be given a check for deposit elsewhere, such as in a fund), an automatic sweep of funds into an interest-bearing account is often offered as an fakultativ feature. Additionally, the basic structure of the central asset account at a typical brokerage involves the addition of an automatic sweep into the traditional cash brokerage account, plus other features as well. Cash balances typically accumulate in a securities brokerage account as the result of Proceeds from securities salesIncome (dividends, interest, etc.) and distributions from investments held in the accountFunds deposited in anticipation of securities purcha ses Even with central asset accounts that earn interest on cash balances, the client still may desire to set up automated sweeps. In particular, the client may need to have cash from dividend and interest payments in one account regularly moved into another for reasons such as these Because the second account is the one from which the client writes checks, makes ATM withdrawals and makes credit card charges, and investment income from the first account is needed to cover these debits.The first account may be a trust account from which the client, as trustee, is obligated to make regular payments of investment income to the holder of the second account. Evolution of Brokerage Sweep Accounts Originally, brokerage sweep accounts used money market funds as their linked interest-bearing accounts. Over time, the corporate treasury departments in leading brokerage firms saw benefits in creating or buying banking subsidiaries and guiding the sweeps to deposit accounts offered by them, r ather than to money market funds. That way, the customer deposits could supply working capital, and reduce the need for higher-cost commercial paper or long-term debt as sources of funding, a second-best alternative to free credits.? In contemporary sweep accounts, the flow of funds automatically goes both ways. Funds are automatically deducted from the interest-bearing linked account when they are needed as payment for securities purchases, checks, and credit card-debit card-ATM card transactions. Most of the leading securities firms either have been acquired by large banks or have been reorganized as bank holding companies themselves as a way to qualify for TARP bailout funds in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. This has accelerated the push towards targeting the sweeps to banking accounts offered in-house. Manual Sweeps Curiously, and inexplicably, even the leading brokerage firms have failed to program capabilities for truly automated sweeps of dividends and interest be tween accounts. Instead, the journal entries to create these sweeps often are calculated and entered manually by brokerage staff, typically sales assistants, at the close of each month. Given that genuinely automatic (i.e., programmed) reinvestment of dividends into additional shares of stock or mutual funds has been around for decades, this lack of basic functionality is especially remarkable. Rather, truly computerized pre-programmed automatic sweeps between brokerage accounts tends to be confined to set dollar amounts moved on a monthly basis.

How References Can Derail Your Career

How References Can Derail Your CareerHow References Can Derail Your CareerHelp your references help you.Reference checks can confirm or deny the value of a job seeker to a potential employer. They can be the difference maker in employment. When it comes to references, do sweat the small stuff.For a real-life illustration of a references importance, consider alexanderplatzs exampleAlex Partain thought his resume and interviews went well with a Fortune 100 technology company. Even in a recession, he blew past most of his friends and secured seven interviews, including final-stage interviews at five companies. Information security positions pay well over $100,000, and with a solid background in the very latest in information security, why shouldnt the offers flow? But what happened next left Alex in the lurch, confused and looking for answers.I honestly could not believe it, Alex says now. I got a serious wake-up call about references. It probably cost me thousands upon thousands of dol lars in terms of months lost. I lost out on every single interview I had secured in a mere month. It wasnt until a third-party recruiter ferreted out the facts about my references that I found out what was going on. What was happening was basically my own hand-picked references were not prepared properly, did not give me glowing reviews and hurt me. But all in all, it was more my fault then theirs. I did not prepare them or myself.The North Carolina-based executive job seeker found out some ugly truths about references.Here is what happened. He gave his two weeks notice, but left his company two weeks before one of the companys most important engagements. He provided his references the proper notice they needed to prepare a quick, positive paragraph on company letterhead and write a sentence or two on LinkedIn. But that wasnt all. Mr. Partain left his current company with a bit of a cloud over his head. I left them a little short on a key project. That left my key references a bit a ngry.After Mr. Partain hired an employment-law attorney who checks references, he found out three cold, hard and interview-busting facts about his referencesFact No. 1 Unprepared references can unknowingly discredit your work on projects.His first and key reference talked glowingly about his work but then undercut him by challenging his work on a key project. My own CIO at my company actually disputed two facts on my resume When one of the reference checkers called, he found out that I had given him an old version of a resume, said Alex.He really did not know that I handled the fix of a very large financial institution in the way I did. So he said that I had not participated in the project. He suggested that and it ended up looking like I lied on my resume without saying explicitly that I lied. To my own discredit, I never gave him a copy of my new resume, and because I was in such a rush to bail out of the company, I just did not communicate what I actually had done in the last p art of my tenure.Lesson Do not assume anything.Closely coach and counsel your references to ensure you both agree on what will be said if someone calls. Get agreement on key achievements and resume points. Make sure you take time to copy the reference on your latest resume.Fact No. 2 The impression a reference leaves will be reflected upon you.The third-listed reference was just totally lukewarm, monotone and even said, I have no comment a few times during the reference checkers interview with him. Though in person the reference was like a comedian with really dark humor, a funny and fun guy he was a total dud as a reference.Then he told a bad joke about Alex and said, I can tell you he didnt kill anyone while he was here, and that was it.Some references never even returned the employers call when Alex listed home and work numbers instead of cell phone numbers. One telephone number the reference checker called went to the desk of another senior manager on the West Coast, who had e ssentially lost out on a promotion to Alex seven years earlier. The guy said, You dont want to know what I think. I could tell some things off the record. But upon follow-up he said, No comment, and reluctantly gave up the number to the correct employee.Lesson Obtain written references and contact information. As a foundation to your overall reference plan, get written references. As an option, you can offer to write the recommendation as long as they agree with the information and essentially sign off on the reference letter. By doing this, you have a proactive way to combat a reference who is less than prepared, distracted or unenthusiastic on the phone.Remember to get permission from your former human resources department to provide you with your employment evaluations. In fact, you can and probably should find out exactly what your current and former employers reference policy is. Written information can be a powerful testimonial and may negate more lengthy phone calls to your current references.Also, ask your reference how she would like to be contacted at home, by cell or by e-mail.Incorrect phone numbers will waste time and hurt your credibility. Even with a correct phone number, if a reference calls and does not respond quickly it can hurt you. It shows she may not care enough to respond quickly or give you high marks. Silence can be deadly here.Fact No. 3 If its a legal issue, investigate legal avenues. Frustrated, Mr. Partain sought the advice of several attorneys, but nothing that was said about him was essentially false or malicious. He didnt have grounds for a lawsuit or the time or money to pursue one. Instead he corrected his own mistakes and actions. I am not going to even say that hiring an employment-law attorney is right or wrong or hiring a reference-checking service is the way to go. I do know I should not have been so hasty in drawing up my references. And I shouldnt have assumed that my references would do what I wanted them to do.Wha t can you do if you feel your references are derailing your career options?Lesson Use preventive medicine.If you truly feel that your background and job search is being compromised by knowingly misleading, malicious or false information, then you may want to hire an attorney or consider legal action. First choice is always to contact your former employer and reference and try to resolve any bad blood or issues upfront, before you start your interview processes. Consider all your options but start with preventive reference medicine first prepping references with current resumes and getting written references and contact information.Aggressive lawyer letters may silence your references completely and shave important time off your job search. A lawsuit could tie up lots of time and resources you may not have during an earnest job search. And what if a so-called bad references statements are justified? Before a lawsuit, find out what you and your reference agree on.Lastly, make sure you review a few questions your references might want to know. Focus on some of the following topics with your references so you agreestart and end dates of employmentthe reason for leavingsalarypositional responsibilities and achievementswork ethiccommunication skillsteam focuspromotionswillingness to rehiregeneral strengths and weaknessesDo what you should do to anticipate how important references become in your search. They are important. Silence and mere neutrality can be fatal in the world of references. Your investment of time, energy and preparation for interviews should not be derailed by bad, lukewarm or silent references. Do what Alex Partain should have done. Dont get off-track during your next, critical career move. Be proactive and prepared when it comes to references.