What is the Eisenhower Matrix?
The Eisenhower Matrix is a tool that helps distinguish between tasks that are important, not important, urgent and not urgent. It helps you to organise and prioritise your tasks to decide what action you should take with each one of them.
Tasks
The first step is to sort each of your tasks and decide if they are urgent or non-urgent tasks, and then if the tasks are important or not important. Below we will outline each of these to help you to decide which ones your tasks will fall into.
Urgent Tasks
Tasks should be sorted into the urgent category if there is a time limit or deadline on the task that is imminent, and if there are negative repercussions or outcomes to theses tasks not being completed within the timeframe.
Not Urgent Tasks
Non-Urgent tasks either have no deadline or the deadline is far enough away that completing this task can wait with no negative repercussions.
Important Tasks
Important tasks are tasks that are important to you, important to an outcome you want/need, important to the people you care about or have to be done because of contracts, obligations or other necessities.
Not Important Tasks
Non-important tasks can be tasks that you feel can be done, but don’t have to be done, tasks that will create little to no difference in situation, or tasks you don’t care about personally.
Actions
Once you have sorted your tasks into Urgent, Not Urgent, Important and Not Important you will see which category each task will fit into and which action you should take with each task. We outline each of the actions below.
Do
If you have decided that your task is urgent and important, this falls in the ‘Do’ category. These tasks should be prioritised and completed in full as soon as you are able to. The tasks in this category should be completed first over tasks in any of the other categories.
Plan
If you have decided that your task is important but not urgent, this falls in the ‘Plan’ category. As you have more time to complete this task, this time should be used to plan for the task. To plan, you could ask yourself these questions about the task:
What do I require to complete this task?
Who needs to be involved with this task?
What is the timeline of this task?
Do I need to learn or upskill to complete this task?
Planning out important but non-urgent tasks will make this task easier to complete, can help to increase the quality of this task and can help to avoid it becoming urgent and rushed.
Delegate
If you have decided that your task is urgent but not important, this falls in the ‘Delegate’ category. These are tasks that may sit better with something else. These tasks are urgent, but if this task isn’t important to you, your situation or your obligations, this should not be your top priority. Instead, try to delegate this task to someone so that this urgent task is still completed.
Eliminate
If you have decided that your task is not urgent and not important, this falls in the ‘Eliminate’ category. These are tasks that you should not be spending time on at the moment and should be removed from your tasks list to free up space for more important and/or urgent tasks. This task could become important or urgent in the future and in which case could move categories, but if it currently falls in the eliminate category, this should not be taking time away from other tasks in the other categories.
The Eisenhower Matrix can be a great tool for determining what action should be taken with each of your tasks, helping you to prioritise your time and get tasks done. This can be changed and adjusted to suit how you tackle tasks and your lifestyle, so can be completely customisable, even the actions can be swapped out for something that suits you better. Don’t be afraid to change things to suit your lifestyle!
If you have tried the Eisenhower Matrix let me how you got on and how it worked for you!
Emma