Quadrant 2 Strategy for Nurseries

               Have you read “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey?  He has a diagram for understanding the value of activities called the Time Management Matrix.   Basically, it’s four quadrants with an X axis of Urgency and a Y axis of Importance. 

               Quadrant 1 is important and urgent.  An example might be calling a customer to let them know that the hydrangeas they’re trying to ship have been trimmed back and no longer have blooms.  It’s important to your business and the customer’s business but it is also very urgent since they’re trying to ship now. 

               Quadrant 2 is important but not urgent.  An example might be inspecting an order of hydrangeas on the dock that will ship tomorrow.  It’s not really urgent because you have all day to inspect them, but it is very important. 

               Quadrant 3 is not important but urgent.  An example might be checking your inbox when you hear the chime of a new email coming in.  The alert makes it seem urgent but while the content might prove to be important, the distraction of checking each time an email arrives can be costly to whatever priorities you were working on already. 

               Quadrant 4 is not important or urgent.  An example of this would be refreshing the inbox to see if anything new came in, responding to group emails, checking your personal social media, etc.  Really, it includes any activity that doesn’t bring value to the company.    

               There are degrees of urgency and importance, so this is really meant to be more of a framework for understanding the value an activity is bringing.  It’s easy to think we should spend our time with the highest priority, but this diagram shows that we can reduce the time we need to spend in Quadrant 1 by focusing our efforts as much as possible in Quadrant 2.  This allows us to solve important problems before they’re urgent.   

               It is a struggle focusing on Quadrant 2 because the urgent tasks pull hard at my attention.  It takes discipline to set my own priorities for the day and ensure that I accomplish them.  This makes even more sense when you combine the quadrants with Pareto’s Law, which states that 80% of results come from 20% of tasks.  This math suggests that I could increase my effectiveness roughly 20% simply by focusing another 5% of my time on Quadrant 2 activities. 

               As an industry, what do we consider to be Quadrant 2 activities vs Quadrant 1?  Sales might be checking the quality of material on a routine basis to help support customers rather than issuing credits.  IPM might be applying preemergent herbicides rather than pulling weeds.  Production might review their canning plans against sales trajectory to prepare for a shortage on the market.  Accounting might be making sure the customer received their invoice, correcting AP contact info, and sending monthly statements rather than collecting on past due invoices.   

               Companies pay their employees more as the employees bring higher economic value to the company.  Likewise, nurseries spend more money with vendors who bring higher economic value to their partnership.  This could be through higher quality plants, a broader variety of products, thoughtful salespeople, logistics support, etc.  Paying attention to where you spend your time is a great place to start if you want to see your business continue to thrive into the future.