If you want to learn some simple and useful skills to quickly get organized, "The Four Quadrants of Time Management" is a must-know for you. Using four quadrants to identify gaps between your tasks as well as to clarify what to do next.
Q1: Urgent and important
Q2: Not urgent but important
Q3: Urgent but not important
Q4: Not urgent and not important
How it works in TickTick
- Create one list for each quadrant
- Drag all four lists under the same folder
- Move relevant tasks from Inbox into each list
- Check four lists periodically and make real-time adjustment
Tip: Drag one list onto another list will automatically create a folder that includes both of them.
Bear in mind：
- Tasks in Q1 are always your priority
- Accomplish tasks in Q2 before they turn into Q1
- If you could, assigning tasks in Q3 to others to handle, or learn to deal with sudden events.
- Try to finish as many tasks in Q4 as you can. Avoid the laziness.
How to be more flexible with Custom Smart List
If you have already created many lists such as “personal” and etc. There’s really no need to move “gym after work” to “Important but not urgent”. By creating a custom list in TickTick, you can still implement four quadrants and organize your life flexibly.
- Create one custom smart list for each category
- Make your own filter options
- Add priority & due date for each task in Inbox
- Check four custom lists periodically and make real-time adjustment
When adding priority and due date for a task, you don’t need to waste time on thinking of which category it belongs to. A custom smart list will do the job and sort tasks into where they belong based on the filters. Additionally, you don’t need to adjust tasks manually as it will automatically move to the right custom list.
Tip：In TickTick, different priority has different color options. Try to use them to represent the importance of your tasks. For example, Red - High Importance, Blue - Low importance. Task due dates will represent the urgency level as well.
Go ahead and create your own lists/custom smart lists of four categories and enjoy a more organized life with TickTick.