Introducing the Eisenhower Matrix

What is the Eisenhower Matrix?

The Eisenhower Matrix, also called Urgent-Important Matrix, is a framework for productivity, prioritization, and time-management designed to help you prioritize tasks or agenda items by categorizing them according to their urgency and importance.

The Eisenhower Matrix helps you decide on and prioritize tasks by urgency and importance, sorting out less urgent and important tasks which you should either delegate or not do at all.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. Before becoming President, he served as a general in the United States Army as the Allied Forces Supreme Commander during World War II. He also later became NATO’s first supreme commander.

Dwight had to continuously make tough decisions about which of the many tasks he should focus on daily. This finally led him to invent the world-famous Eisenhower principle, which today helps us prioritize by urgency and importance.

How to use the Eisenhower Matrix?

Prioritizing tasks by urgency and importance results in 4 quadrants with different work strategies:

The first quadrant Do first are essential for your life and career and needs to be done today or tomorrow at the latest.

The second quadrant we call Schedule. Its tasks are important but less urgent. You should list tasks you need to put in your calendar here.

The third quadrant is for those tasks you could delegate as they are less important to you than others but still pretty urgent. You should keep track of delegated tasks by e-mail, telephone, or within a meeting to check back on their progress later.

The fourth and last quadrant is Don’t Do because it is there to help you sort out what you should not be doing.

Discover and stop bad habits, like surfing the internet without a reason or gaming for too long. These give you an excuse for not being able to deal with essential tasks in the 1st and 2nd quadrants.