Imagine this scenario: there's a landslide blocking the main road and you were tasked with clearing all the boulders out of the way. How would you go about this?

Well, you could start by removing the largest boulder first. Although this is arguably harder work, it's also the fastest way to clear the road. On the other hand, you could start by removing the small rocks and grave. That would be easier but will definitely take longer.

In this situation, the most productive route would be to concentrate on the largest rocks first. However, as soon as you feel fatigue, you may start shifting to the small rocks instead.

This is a fairly good metaphor for the experience of working in Quadrant 2. Even when we obsessively make plans to only focus on the most important of tasks, we often get burnt out and turn to smaller, less critical tasks.

Question then becomes, how do you avoid this productivity slide? Start by designing a plan you can stick to. A Master Task List where you can plan and keep track of the important work for the week ahead.

This can be done on paper or go digital, plan everything you need to do. For example, schedule blocks of time to spend learning programming mobile applications. Then create space for each day for the non-scheduled work (the small rocks) that come up like those "urgent" emails and calls.

In short, the Master Task List will allow you to get everything out of your mind and onto other mediums such as paper or computer, where you can organize and see things clearly.

This methodology also makes it much easier to stick to your plans because when you schedule a task with a day and time then it's easier to feel that you have enough time to get it done.

But of course you would need time to manage your task list! Make sure you schedule about 30 minutes per week and 10 minutes per day for planning