Emergency Room Doctor - The 4th Quadrant

Do you often face firefighting situations at work?

Is it often that you have an urgent task at hand? 

Don't worry! you are not alone. Most professionals, on most of the days, are frantically chasing the next thing?

But why can't these smart individuals learn to manage their time more effectively?

Why do most of us find ourselves living like emergency room physicians, always in a state of urgency?

Please see the picture below:

It's a good idea to focus on just a few important things and stay in quadrant 4. Planning and prioritizing will be essential for this.

I use the following spreadsheet to stay in the 4th quadrant. I call it my weighted To-Do list.

Items with the highest total will ascend to the top automatically - and must be done first. You will notice the override column. I use this to award extra points to a task that needs to be done first but may not come on top of the list on its own (and vice-versa).

How do you stay efficient & productive?