Covey's quadrants...

The quadrant model that is featured in the work of Steve Covey, of The Seven Habits... fame) is really making itself felt, all of a sudden.

We got home last night after going out for dinner...$30 for two people for a ho-hum feed at a local country-themed eatery...and I felt like one whipped puppy. As I was rubbing Galina's feet, she asked - jokingly, I hope - whether my long face was the result of her return to Pagosa or something else.

I told her I was not happy with the fact that at the end of the typical 11-hour day, there is still so much to do, but I am well and truly not in any shape to sit down and start doing it. Today had been particularly brutal, as I had a total of about 15 minutes "off" today, during which I wolfed down some German potato salad and a sandwich.

She looked at me and reminded me I had a choice: I could decide to have a bad attitude about my circumstance, or I could decide to have a more positive attitude.

Yeah, that's right. Ol' Mr. Positive over here had allowed himself to develop a roaring case of what I once heard Zig Ziglar call "stinkin' thinkin'." So now it's time to give myself a "checkup from the neck up."

Part of that "checkup" is to remember Covey's model, and the implications of allowing yourself to be pushed around by what he calls "Quadrant III."

No time to explain in full now, but basically, there are things in life that are urgent and those that are not. There are also things that are important, and those that are not.

Important does not mean the same thing as urgent. A ringing telephone is urgent; it makes noise and posts a claim on your time. The call may be important ("we'd like to engage your services") or it may not be ("wanna buy a subscription to the South Pasadena Shopping News?").

Things that are urgent and important lie in Quadrant I of Covey's model. Most people have no problem getting these done.

Things that are not urgent but important lie in Quadrant II. A simple example might be that of a good, helpful book that would have enormous payback if read. Since it doesn't "ring" or otherwise proclaim its urgency, it doesn't get attended to. Most people have a big problem getting these items done.

Things that are urgent and not important (like the aforementioned phone call) lie in Quadrant III. These are the myriad little fires that steal our cycles and cause us to neglect the stuff that's important. Paradoxically, a lot of people (myself included) spend a lot of time on this stuff. So much so, that the Quadrant II stuff is that much harder to do, if at all.

Enough recollection of theory. Now, I must focus my attention on getting the important things done.

Cheers...

День космонавти&

Forty years ago today, Yuri Gagarin was lofted into space atop a modified ICBM, thus beginning human exploration of space.

That's something to celebrate.

Forty years later, after a few visits to our nearest neighbor (the Moon) and a handful of attempts at long-duration flights (Salyut, Spacelab, Mir, ISS), we're still stuck in low-earth orbit, talking about going to Mars, yet nobody knows who and how and when such an effort will be funded.

If the same type of progress had been made in aviation over the first 40 years of its development, we'd be the beneficiaries of a series of irregular flights - made for scientific purposes - between airports several hundred miles from one another.

But today is not the time to be thinking of what might have been. It is a time to celebrate what has been accomplished.

It is also time, I think, to redouble our efforts in response to Gagarin's famous departing line: "Поехали!" ("Let's go-o-o!").

Cheers...