Dwight D. Eisenhower is most famous for the work he accomplished as the 34th president of the United States. During his two terms he helped launch the National Highway System, the Internet, and the NASA space exploration program.
By now you might be thinking, how did he accomplish all of that?
As it turns out, he used a simple but powerful task management strategy to identify the most important work. And now, his method is appropriately known as the Eisenhower Method.
You may have heard it referred to as the Eisenhower Box or the urgent important matrix. Whatever you call it, mastering this simple skill can help you add order to your to do list and become a pro at task management.
Keep reading to learn more about:
- What is the Eisenhower Matrix
- How to use it
- The best task management software to help you
Page Contents
The Eisenhower Matrix: What is it?
To put it simply, the Eisenhower Matrix is a categorization strategy that helps you prioritize your to do list. It involves a process of segmenting all of your tasks into four different quadrants.
The quadrant uses “urgency” and “importance” to segment each task. Afterward, each task falls into one of four categories: do, delay, delegate, and delete. The name of each category tells you how to handle your tasks.
Why do we need the Eisenhower Matrix?
Well, it turns out that we as individuals aren’t naturally good at prioritizing. In fact, we often focus too much time on unimportant tasks and leave our most important work on the backburner.
Here’s why: it all boils down to a phenomenon that psychologists refer to as the mere urgency effect. The mere urgency effect means that we are wired to act on urgent tasks rather than important tasks.
As it turns out, we’re more likely to focus on “firefighting” tasks (or seemingly urgent tasks) instead of the really important work.
Ultimately, this leads to a lot of feeling busy rather than feeling productive. You may recognize this as the feeling that you’ve been working all day but you didn’t really get anything done.
This is the result of the mere urgency effect. So, this is why we need to use task management strategies.
This is where the Eisenhower Matrix comes in handy. It can help you identify your priorities for any long-term goal you have including:
- Health goals
- Business & career goals
- Personal & family life goals
The Problem with Your To Do List
Many people use to do lists to plan their months, weeks, and days. While they are a great tool for remembering all of our tasks, they have one fatal flaw. Simple to do lists don’t differentiate between important tasks and non-essential tasks. Everything looks the same.
What’s more is that most to do lists are too long. To do lists that are too long actually make us less productive.
How so? Think about it. When you have a super long to do list, it’s hard to identify the important work.
In fact, if your important work is difficult, then your to do list can easily turn into a distraction list. Why focus on reaching out to possible leads when you can dust the shelves and pick up coffee filters?
Long to do lists give you a nice list of tasks that can distract from the work you really need to focus on. Gary Keller and Jay Papasan authored The One Thing, a book on the benefits of ruthless prioritization.
In their book they say that, “To do lists are long. Success lists are short.” It’s a simple concept, but it can be hard to apply it to real life. And that’s where the Eisenhower Matrix comes in handy — it helps you identify your success list.
For more business insights, check out our list of books every solopreneur should read before getting started.
How to Use the Eisenhower Matrix
By now, you can see why the Eisenhower Matrix uses “urgent” and “important” to categorize tasks. The matrix consists of four quadrants, and each quadrant has a different priority level.
Prioritization: Urgent vs Important
Before we look at the quadrants in more detail, let’s establish the difference between urgent and important.
Urgent tasks are those that we feel we need to react to right away. To put it another way, they have (or appear to have) short deadlines. These tasks include responding to emails, answering phone calls, and upcoming deadlines.
On the other hand, important tasks are those that impact your long-term vision and goals. These tasks usually involve more deep work and actually creating or producing something. For example, important tasks might be working on a book outline, putting together an important client presentation, and writing your business plan.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of completing urgent tasks for one major reason — they take less time to complete.
We all like checking items off our list. Therefore, it’s tempting to respond to a handful of emails and phone calls rather than sitting down to write a chapter or a report.
But, if the important tasks are always pushed to the bottom of the to do list, then long term goals won’t be achieved.
So, let’s take a look at how the Eisenhower Matrix helps us sort through that long to do list.
1 – Urgent & Important – The “Do” Quadrant
Urgent and important tasks should be focused on immediately. These are tasks that have visible deadlines and serious consequences for not meeting those deadlines.
In other words, if you miss these deadlines, it will negatively affect your long-term goals.
Tasks in your “Do” quadrant might include:
- Submitting a proposal for a big client
- Your car battery needs replacement and you drive to work
- Submitting a draft article
- Responding to an important client emergency
Tasks become important and urgent in two ways: important tasks that you left to the last-minute and unexpected surprises or emergencies.
Surprises and emergencies are out of your control. But, it’s best to plan ahead for important deadlines that you’re aware of so you can avoid burnout. Feeling burnt out can happen when you spend all of your time on tasks in this quadrant.
If you learn to make time for your important tasks everyday, you can get more of them done before they become urgent.
2 – Not Urgent & Important – The “Delay” Quadrant (or the “Schedule” Quadrant)
Tasks that are important but don’t have an immediate deadline fall in quadrant two (or the “Delay” quadrant.)
These are important tasks so you don’t want to delegate them. So, they are the next biggest priority after you’ve taken care of tasks in quadrant one.
Tasks in your “Delay” quadrant might include:
- Learning a new skill
- Strategic planning
- Networking
- Competitive Research
- Exercise and going to the gym
Your quadrant two tasks involve the deep or creative work that helps you progress towards your long-term goals. With that being said, this is the quadrant you don’t want to ignore.
These are the critical tasks that often get pushed aside in favor of urgent tasks. So, you need to find a way to ensure you protect time for them. The good news, is there are two ways to do that.
- Schedule – When you schedule time for these tasks (rather than just putting them in a “delay” category) you can hold yourself accountable. Make sure these have a spot on your calendar or your planner.
- Deadline – If you have a hard time scheduling, then you can use deadlines to create urgency and move these tasks to quadrant one. You can rely on internal deadlines, or even find an accountability partner. Even if it’s promising to send progress to a friend or spouse. Choose whatever helps you stay the most accountable.
3 – Urgent & Not Important – The “Delegate” Quadrant
Tasks in the urgent and not important category are some of the trickiest to deal with. If you recall the Mere Urgency Effect, you’ll remember that we often mistake urgency for importance.
These types of tasks feel important and they may even have deadlines, but there’s one key difference. They aren’t as important, which means we don’t have to oversee every detail of them.
Anything on your to do list that falls in this category should be delegated to someone else.
Tasks in your “Delegate” quadrant might include:
- Scheduling social posts
- Responding to simple or less important client emails
- Booking travel arrangements
- Data entry, copying, filing
Now, not everyone has co-workers, staff, or even family that can help out. But, the good news is that you can also delegate to technology.
Using social media schedulers, chatbots or FAQ pages, and generating automatic reports are all examples of delegating to technology.
Otherwise, another great option is to delegate to freelancers. You can use websites like Fiverr to hire freelancers for logo design, digital marketing services, content writing, and more. With Fiverr, you can delegate on a project-basis.
4 – Not Urgent & Not Important – The “Delete” Quadrant
Tasks that are both not urgent and not important are also known as your distractions. They can be dangerous because this is the bucket that people turn to if they are burnt out from quadrant one work.
Ask yourself the following questions to determine if tasks can be deleted:
- If I delete this task, will my long-term goals be negatively affected?
- If I miss this deadline, will there be serious consequences?
If you answered “no” to both of these questions, chances are you can delete the task.
Tasks in your “Delete” quadrant might include:
- Browsing social media or online shopping
- Catching the latest episode of a TV show
- Snacking
- Video games/crosswords/etc.
- Changing your fantasy football lineup
Oftentimes, personal tasks end up on the same to do lists as your business tasks. But, if you want to make real progress towards your goals, it’s best to delete them.
If you struggle with distractions, check out our guide to creating a focused workspace. Not only do you need to delete distractions from your to do list, but you’ll need to find ways to delete the temptation to stray from work.
These are activities you can do in your free time once you’ve finished more important work.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you should never take leisure time. It’s important to take mental breaks and spend time away from work. But, leisure and relaxation should get it’s own separate time.
When you’ve planned some dedicated work time, then keep these tasks off your list.
Best Task Management Software
One of the great things about the Eisenhower Matrix is its simplicity. You can set it up easily using pen and paper. However, if you prefer to use task management software, there are a few options that work well with this method.
Trello is a free software that uses Kanban Boards (a project management tool that helps visualize priorities) to organize work. There are a few different ways to use an the urgent important matrix with Trello.
- Create lists with the titles: Do, Delay, Delegate, Delete
- Use tags and categories to prioritize your task cards on trello
- Use the calendar feature to schedule time or create deadlines for important tasks
- Delegate to team members with assignments
You can use trello for personal tasks or even invite team members to join as well.
Todoist is a task management software that has premium features starting as low as $3/month. It includes the ability to prioritize tasks, create subtasks, automate task repeating, and calendar your deadlines.
There are different calendar views to help you get a quick look at your daily tasks and the week ahead. Like Trello, Todoist can be used individually or with a team.
Final Thoughts: The Eisenhower Matrix and Prioritization
Almost everyone uses to do lists at some point. But, if you want to make sure that you’re progressing towards long-term goals, then you also need a prioritization strategy.
By prioritizing your tasks, you can create time for important work, rather than getting overwhelmed with urgent work. So, give the Eisenhower Matrix a try and see how much more productive you can be.
It’s easy to get swept up in feeling “busy.” But, at the end of the day, you want to feel like you have actually achieved something.
To help identify what’s most important with your business, check out our free business plan template for freelancers and solopreneurs. Taking time to work on your long-term vision will help you find your truly important tasks.