Teach you to say goodbye to busboys

Last time we talked about the 80/20 rule, the method of finding the gripper, and it's a great way to get at the main contradiction of things. But it has the disadvantage of ignoring the developmental nature of things, and may make us ignore some potential that we should spend time and energy to cultivate. It's just that the four-quadrant analysis that we're talking about in this lecture can be used as a supplement.

What is the four-quadrant analysis method

Four-quadrant analysis means that two important dimensions of things are taken as the basis for analysis, which are set as horizontal axis and vertical axis, and the objects to be analyzed are projected onto the four quadrants, and different targeted means are applied to the objects in different quadrants. The difference with the 80/20 rule is that the 80/20 rule focuses on a single metric, dividing objects into the top 20% and the bottom 80%, focusing more on the top 20%. The quadrants are more refined, dividing objects into four dimensions by focusing on two metrics.

That might be abstract. One of the most familiar examples is the four-quadrant rule of time management. Have you ever noticed how many people rush, are overloaded, are stressed, and produce mediocre results? While some people seem to be calm and busy, but they get a lot of things done at a high quality. This is the difference between time management and productivity.

In the four-quadrant law of time management, the horizontal axis is the degree of urgency, from left to right are not urgent and urgent; The vertical axis is importance, from bottom to top is unimportant and important. According to the two dimensions of importance and urgency, we can divide the things to be done into four categories:

Loading in...

The first quadrant: those that are both important and urgent and need to be addressed first. For example: customer complaints

Quadrant 2: important but not urgent things that require long-term commitment, planning, and task breakdown to solve. For example: continuous learning, team building, career planning, etc.

The third quadrant: is not important but very urgent things, can not do, or share with others.

Quadrant 4: If it's something that's neither important nor urgent, just be ruthless and tell him to fuck off.

Some operations describe themselves as fire fighting and miscellaneous, that is, too much urgent and not important and not urgent unimportant things in the body. According to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, highly effective people spend 65%-80% of their time on important but not urgent tasks. Because they plan and plan most of their work ahead of time, the rest of their quadrants are naturally reduced. Therefore, reducing the first and third quadrants, eliminating the fourth quadrants, and focusing on the important rather than the urgent things in the second quadrant are very effective time management methods.

In fact, the four-quadrant law is a kind of hierarchical thought, which is the embodiment of fine thinking. It can be used in many situations besides time management.

Two, the application of the four quadrant rule

The famous Boston matrix is a classic use of the four quadrants. In this model, market share and sales growth can be used to divide the company's products into four quadrants. The products with "double high" sales growth rate and market share are called star products; Sales growth rate and market share "double low" products called lean dog products; The product group with high sales growth rate and low market share is called problem product; The products with low sales growth rate and high market share are called cash cow products.

This model helps managers take a forward-looking view, focusing not only on products with a high current market share, but also on products with high sales growth rates, and eliminating businesses that are not going anywhere.

Loading in...

If you are a channel operator and you have a lot of channels, you can also use four-quadrant analysis to layer channels. Select the two dimensions you pay most attention to as the horizontal axis and vertical axis, such as flow scale and quality, can be divided into high quality large channel, high quality small channel, low quality large channel, low quality small channel four.

For example, when I was in the operation of the Flying Pig Hotel Channel, I needed to spread spots everywhere to guide the channel. In this way, it is clear to me that JuHuasuan was my high-quality channel. I need to maintain the relationship with the channel and continue to hug my thighs. Some air tickets hotel specials forum is my small channel of quality, need to increase the delivery, mining more flow; For low quality channels, such as every day special channel, bring a lot of flow, but the transaction is very low, consumption power is not strong, the treatment of such channels need to control the cost. This cost includes money as well as time and effort. Finally, for low quality small channels, that is, the flow of less and not accurate channels, may be directly cut. Will release my energy in the first three channels.

Loading in...

The four quadrant analysis method can also be used to deal with life scenes. For example, I've been freelancing for over two years. The most profitable part of my life is offline training, but this is active income, which means that when I stop teaching, it disappears. My goal this year is to increase my passive income share so that I can spend the rest of my life more relaxed and less anxious. So I've drawn a four-quadrant with the two metrics that I care about most: active or passive income, and high or low income. So this graph basically guides me through the year.

Active income with high income, such as training lectures and consulting, this penny will be earned now; High income passive income is what I want most, and I think online classes and books have the potential to fit into this quadrant. So this year, in addition to making quick money, I spent a lot of effort to publish books and do online classes. The current income may not be very large, but through operation, they will become my continuous passive income.

Loading in...

The four quadrants are very flexible to use. The horizontal and vertical dimensions are the ones that you have the flexibility to replace with whatever you care about. For example, a classmate asked me for career planning. From her description, I found that what she cared most about was social prestige and income. She was often confused about how to divide her energy between making money and making fame.

I asked her to draw four quadrants from these two dimensions and put in the way she was now earning her income. In the first quadrant, fame and fortune, of course, are the first priority. Next, divide your energy between earning money but not fame and earning fame but not money.

Here is a little mention of wechat business. Many micro commodity brands will attract people to join with high income and passive income, but most people try to find that this is an active income and low income project. That IS TO SAY IT TOOK UP YOU YOU A lot OF time, income JUST a little bit, and dare not stop at all, stopped without flow did not have income. In this case, is it time to rethink the meaning and original intention of doing this?

Three, summary promotion

To summarize, four quadrants are often used to deal with complex objects or scenes, which need to be treated with layers and refinements. The premise of the four-quadrant analysis is that you have to be able to find the two key dimensions that go right to the core, the horizontal axis and the vertical axis, and divide the object into four parts.

In addition to focusing on the first quadrant, which currently looks the strongest, we are reminded to focus on the rising potential stocks. Things I mentioned earlier that are important but not urgent, passive income that doesn't yield much, good small channels, etc...

Today's exercise is to draw a four-quadrant analysis of your most vexing problem and say how you would deal with the four quadrants. Let's see if it's any clearer. If you find the lesson useful, feel free to share it with your friends and see you next time!