Eisenhower Matrix

The Eisenhower Matrix is ​​one of the time management methods for prioritizing the tasks of the day. The matrix looks like four squares, which are obtained by crossing the axes «Important — Not Important» horizontally and «Urgent — Not Urgent» vertically.

How to use this matrix? Just sort your tasks (for example, the tasks of the day) there according to their importance and urgency. Over time, this will become quite simple, but for now we will give a little explanation.

Important and urgent matters — those that are very important and do not tolerate delay. Without them, everything will collapse, and it will be too late to make them tomorrow. These things need to be done today, first of all — and without fail. Examples of important and urgent tasks: completing a project task that is about to be due; an unscheduled trip to the dentist, traumatologist or other specialist; urgent phone call to a client or counterparty. In theory, the square of important and urgent matters should be empty, but in practice, sometimes every person has important and urgent matters, some of them are generated by laziness, some by a lack of professionalism, and some by force majeure.

Important but not urgent matters — this is something important that will become urgent in a short time. If you do not plan to wait for this and arrange an unnecessary race for yourself, then pay close attention to these matters. Examples of such cases: current (planned) work on your projects; planning new projects; evaluation of the results obtained by projects; visiting the gym to keep fit.

Things are not important, but urgent. As a rule, things that do not bring you closer to the goal, whatever it may be, fall into this square, these are things that need to be done, but only in order to do them. Happy birthday (it turns out that Vasya was born today), the unexpected arrival of guests and other unplanned, imposed meetings that cannot be refused. If you can delegate something from this, instruct someone, do it by all means.