Shifting from Normal Performance to High Performance

Normal performers simply let life happen to them and are “good enough” to get by. High performance is what gets noticed because of the results created. When others notice your high performance results, your influence increases as a leader.

Reactive Activities: Quadrant I

As a result of becoming a high performer, reacting to actions that must be acted upon in can be reduced by 5 – 10%. This means that you are reacting to fewer emergencies. Because we live in an imperfect world, there will always be some reactive decisions. These reactive situations can be reduced by focusing on proactive activities.

Proactive Activities: Quadrant II

High performers focus on proactive activities that can be found by a significant increase in proactive activities (up to 65 – 80% of the time) reduces the need to make reactive decisions because decisions are made and acted upon before they become emergencies.

Increasing focus on proactive activities does not come without concentrated effort. Leaders must make a dedicated decision to allocate time for proactive (quadrant II) activities. This is best accomplished by predetermining the proactive activities through planning, goals, to-do lists, and scheduling those highest priority quadrant II activities into their day.

Killing Quadrant III

The biggest impact of focusing on proactive activities in quadrant II is the significant reduction (to 15%) of time spent in quadrant III. Reducing quadrant III by almost half is another byproduct of focus on proactive activities.

Because these activities need quick action but are not important to you, most of these activities can and should be delegated somewhere else. You simply do not have time to deal with activities that are in quadrant III.

Eliminating Total Waste: Quadrant IV

Of course, lowering our time in quadrant IV doesn’t have far to go when normal performance is already at 2 – 3%. However, if you find that you are spending 5% or more of your time in quadrant IV, this is a likely reason you are not succeeding in your goals or growing your influence.

Constants and Variables

One thing that is consistent for everyone is time. Everyone who has ever existed, is alive today, or will live are all given the exact same 24 hours every day. We are all given a fresh 168 hours every week. Next year, we will all have 8,736 hours to spend however we wish.

You can accomplish anything. I’m not going to go into a long motivation pep talk other than to tell you that the people who have created the most significant contributions, who have achieved whatever success you yearn, have helped the most people, etc. all had the same amount of time as you.

• How will you choose to spend your time?
• How will you organize and manage your activities and tasks?
• How will you prioritize your efforts?

This month, I am posting about how to prioritize your activities. Get the free companion worksheet that will accompany all posts this month.

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