The Eisenhower Matrix is a method of prioritizing your tasks on the basis of their urgency. It helps to determine the activities that are important and the ones that do not deserve your attention at all. The Eisenhower Matrix was created by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the USA.
One of his famous quotes is, “most things which are urgent are not important, and most things which are important are not urgent.”
The matrix basically categorizes your tasks into 4 quadrants according to what you need to do each day.
These four quadrants are:
- Do
- Decide
- Delegate
- Eliminate
1. Do
The first quadrant of the Eisenhower Matrix, Do, consists of your most important tasks. The activities which need to be done urgently. The tasks with a deadline approaching or the ones that cannot be delayed generally fall in this category.
2. Decide/Plan
The second quadrant of the Eisenhower Matrix is Decide. It constitutes the tasks which are important, but are not necessarily urgent. This could include an array of responsibilities ranging from professional emails, follow-ups, to more personal appointments and commitments.
Tasks in this quadrant need to be scheduled for some other time. Generally, these tasks are in line with your long-term goals and contribute towards your growth. A common everyday example could be to exercise. You know it’s crucial to good health, but you cannot dedicate time to it. So, you need to decide the time when you’re ready to hit it.
3. Delegate
The third quadrant of the Eisenhower Matrix is Delegate. This category refers to the tasks which are not important, but urgent. Although it sounds counter-intuitive, because naturally your first instinct would be that aren’t tasks which are urgent, important too? Not necessarily!
These activities generally give you the deception of being important, while in reality they don’t really contribute much towards your productivity. You need to decide whether you need to reschedule it or if someone else can do it for you.
4. Eliminate
The last category of Eisenhower Matrix is Eliminate. These consists of tasks that are essentially your productivity killers. They do not contribute at all towards your goals. Identify these activities and eliminate them to give your productivity a boost.
How to Use Eisenhower Matrix for Time Management
Ideally draw the quadrant on a piece of paper or a whiteboard. Then classify your urgent and important activities. For doing so, you need to set your priorities right and define urgency levels.
Your urgent tasks are usually the ones which have a time constraint attached to them. These activities have a ‘do it now’ written all over them and require your utmost attention.
On the other hand, your important tasks are generally long term and rather goal-oriented. Generally, they don’t give you immediate results and are more focused towards making better long-term decisions.
Quick tips to maximise your success:
1. Give Colour Codes to Quadrants
Assign colour codes to your quadrants to quickly help you understand the gravity of the situation. By allocating colours, you can get a quick glance at what needs to be done next. For example, the do quadrant can be coloured red to indicate the urgency of tasks.
2. Categorize Your Professional and Personal To-Dos
To avoid over-lapping commitments, make separate matrices for your professional and personal tasks. This will help with what lies ahead and will greatly influence how you manage your time. A trick here can be to dedicate distinct hours of the day for both kinds of commitments and see how that works for you.
3. Limit the Number of Items Per Quadrant
Adding too many items per quadrant will over-complicate things and the purpose of using the Eisenhower Matrix for time management will be lost. To optimize it, limit the number of actions to 7 or 8. That way you won’t be over-whelmed with what you need to do.
