Most of the things you need to do are in Quadrant 2

This concept is taken from the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

In the book, activities are divided into four quadrants (1 to 4).

Quadrant 1: important and urgent, like a health emergency.

Quadrant 2: important but not urgent, like exercise.

Quadrant 3: not important but urgent, like casual texting, unimportant call.

Quadrant 4: not important and not urgent, like scrolling without a goal on the cell phone.

If we have diabetes, we do not want to get more of quadrant 1 because this would mean more complications (stroke, heart attack, dialysis, foot amputations, blindness, and nerve pains). This would lead to more costs (medications, doctors, admissions, and procedures), a lower quality of life, and likely less time in this world.

In order to prevent complications, we need to focus on quadrant 2 activities. But you already know that, right? So why are so many of us having a difficult time following through?

1. Because it is not urgent. If somebody tells you your leg will get chopped off tomorrow if you don’t exercise today, you’ll stand up right now and exercise.

2. We don't think with the end in mind. Many of us don't stop to think about what is important to us in the future.

3. We are trapped in managing quadrant 1 activities and using our extra time to do quadrant 3 and 4 activities because everything is grabbing our attention.

How then do we increase our time in quadrant 2 activities? Move with intention. This can only be done if you know what is important to you. Lower quadrant 3 and especially 4 activities to give time to quadrant 2 activities.

It’s old but gold: An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure - B. Franklin.

Eating healthy and exercising regularly sounds easy, but if it were easy, then everybody would be doing it, right?