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Almost everyone who has dealt with what is called 'time management' (we much prefer the term 'resources budgeting') is familiar with Stephen R. Covey's four quadrants. Just in case you might have missed it along the way, it's a four-square grid, where the top row is 'important' and the bottom row is 'not important', the left column is 'urgent' and the right column is 'not urgent'. All the activities that go to make up our day fall somewhere in this grid. There has been a lot of ink spilled (ok . . . 'words written') about these four quadrants. We know that the top left (Quadrant 1) is 'extreme focus' or 'panic mode'. We can figure out Humberto9 activities in the top right (Quadrant 2) are in 'mindful focus' and done with care and planning. We're instructed to beware of the lower left cell (Quadrant 3), or 'deceived focus' where we're rushing to accomplish something useless. Finally, we're well aware of the lower right cell (Quadrant 4) where our 'wasted focus' leaves us spending time doing nothing worthwhile at all.

Has anyone bothered to ask, in cheap life assurance of this discussion, what constitutes an 'important' activity and what constitutes an 'urgent' activity? How sendmethecard you judge importance? The ability to prioritize our choices is critical to getting anything significant done, and it all depends on how we understand 'importance', doesn't it? The answer to this dilemma is as valuable as it is overlooked: you can determine the importance of an activity by how severe the consequences would be of not accomplishing it. In fact, you need ask yourself only one question to determine whether or not something is important: "What are the consequences of my not doing this?" You can take that as a cornerstone statement of all resources budgeting.

Does this have anything to do with 'honor'? You betcha! Honor is all about the recognition and appreciation of what's most deeply important. Honor, like the determination of importance, has little to do with emotions. It's not about what anyone feels might be important (a direct route, by the way, to the 'deceived focus' of Quadrant 3), but what a rational mind can determine has consequences in real life. That's why the daily news brings me to question whatever happened to honor. Honor, after all, has the same root has 'honest'. Honest people cut through the emotional distractions that promote the deceptions of Quadrants 3 and 4. Quadrants 1 and 2 are, after all, deeply rooted in reality, not assumptions, innuendo, distractions, smokescreens and 'spin'.

In an honorable debate, the focus will be on what's important: what has tangible consequences. In an honorable election, the choices are between policies that have consequences, not lighting, facial expressions, clothing, 'likability' or 'popularity' (and sell annuity payment how do we get around that in a democracy?). On one side we have policies, goals, values, and character; on the other, appearance and human frailty. We're not expected to apply the same standards to our candidates for office that we do to ourselves; we can and should hold them to a higher standard. But not in everything! We can't demand our elected officials to be super-human. The Europeans 'get' this, where I fear we really don't. They can't understand why so much what we're concerned with seems so important to us even though they have so few practical consequences.

Here's the bottom line: a person can be honorable and still have human imperfections so long as they have few practical consequences. Doesn't this apply to you and coloring books On the other hand, a person can pretend to be superficially attractive, while still being dishonest and dishonorable at the core, having his or her priorities all confused. Year by hear, the international stakes grow ever higher, and our national clout (for good or ill) grows. Shouldn't we be demanding a higher standard of honor in our political process? And, doesn't that demand a higher standard of honor from ourselves?

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
ProActivation Coaching
Website: www.ProActivation.com">www.ProActivation.com
E-Mail: mailto:info@ProActivation.com">info@ProActivation.com

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Copyright 2008 H. Les Brown