There are days — or even entire weeks — when you have so many tasks on your to-do list that they’re impossible to complete.
You have emails and messages to respond to, deadlines and milestones to complete, and long-term goals to always keep in your sights. Interruptions, like an unexpected phone call or a knock on your door from a coworker, disrupt your flow and rearrange your day. And during busy periods, such as tax season for accountants or holiday rushes for retailers, tasks feel endless.
With so much to do, you need to find organization tools that guide your time and energy with purpose. Without a clear system to prioritize the tasks in your workflow, it’s easy to get lost, fall behind, or forget about something urgent.
The Eisenhower Matrix is a task prioritization method that breaks work tasks into explicit levels of urgency and importance. It visualizes your work and empowers better decision-making. Here’s how to use it and decide if it’s the right tool for you.
What’s the Eisenhower Matrix?
The Eisenhower Matrix, also referred to as the Eisenhower Decision Matrix or Urgent-Important Matrix, is a visual time management tool that splits work tasks into four quadrants. Each priority quadrant represents a task’s level of urgency and importance:
- Urgent and important
- Important but non-urgent
- Urgent but not important
- Non-urgent and not important
As you might glean from the name, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a commanding World War II general and the 34th President of the United States, inspired this system from his approach to task prioritization. “What’s important is seldom urgent,” Eisenhower said, “and what’s urgent is seldom important.” In other words, it’s vital to weigh a task’s deadline with its value to create the best to-do list possible.
You might already use a checklist for every pending task. But a task prioritization matrix like this one takes it a step further and identifies the significance of each task to your overall workflow, approaching your schedule more strategically.
Having all assignments and responsibilities mapped out lets you concentrate on tasks that are time-sensitive or necessary to perform your job effectively.
You’ll spend less energy on time-wasters and delegate work that doesn’t need your attention, helping you be more productive. Plus, it makes space in your schedule for more free time and personal development.
Urgent tasks versus important tasks
On paper, “urgent” and “important” probably sound interchangeable. You might assume that if it’s urgent, it’s likely important, and if it’s important, it must be urgent. But the Eisenhower Matrix defines these attributes differently.
An urgent task is a task that requires immediate attention. These types of tasks are often reactive or may be necessary for you or a colleague to continue their work. Responding to an email from a high-value client, fixing a buggy website, or prioritizing a deadline to keep timelines are all urgent tasks.
An important task is a task that contributes to your career growth or the completion of an objective or long-term goal. They don’t require immediate action, but dedicating time to them advances you toward important milestones.
Creating a networking plan, building an online portfolio of your work, or attending a corporate training session to improve a skill are all important tasks. You don’t need to do them right now, but they are vital to your career.
The four quadrants of the Eisenhower Matrix
Source: BetterUp
The Eisenhower Matrix has four quadrants that categorize each task. Here’s a further breakdown of each one, with examples to help you ace your time management skills:
1. Urgent and important
The first quadrant is for tasks that require your immediate attention. These directly contribute to your short-term responsibilities and goals, and you should deal with them personally and promptly. They could be crises, important deadlines, or problems that you need to solve fast. Here are some examples:
- Completing the final touches for a presentation later in the day
- Responding to a critical email from a client or manager
- Calling a last-minute meeting to handle a crisis
- Fixing a bug affecting a product or service
2. Non-urgent but important
The second quadrant represents tasks that contribute to long-term goals. Although they don’t require immediate action, schedule them into your calendar. They’re strategic building blocks to achieving an objective, and they might become urgent later. Here are some examples:
- Attending regular mentoring sessions
- Spending time researching industry trends to stay on top of your field
- Planning or reviewing budgets
- Defining your objectives for the upcoming year
3. Urgent but not important
Tasks in the third quadrant require immediate attention but won’t significantly affect your long-term objectives. These are often tasks or interruptions that spring on you suddenly. In some cases, delegate them to other team members. Here are a few examples:
- Organizing travel arrangements for an upcoming work trip
- Answering an unscheduled phone call from a manager or team member
- Routine paperwork or administrative tasks
- Ordering office supplies or organizing your space
4. Non-urgent and not important
Activities that don’t contribute to your professional goals and don’t require immediate action belong in the fourth quadrant. These tasks are often distractions or involve procrastination, throwing off your workflow and wasting your time.
Consider limiting or eliminating these time-wasters from your day altogether. Here are some common examples:
How to prioritize tasks like a pro
The Eisenhower method is a great way to organize your task management and work smarter, but it isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Along with this tool, developing effective project management and time management skills is essential to your productivity. You can’t take full advantage of the matrix if you don’t have time to do so.
Here are four ways to improve your task prioritization:
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Track productivity: Tracking which activities affect your productivity can help you protect your energy and perform at a higher level. If meetings tire you out, block them into specific days and hours rather than spreading them throughout the week. That way, you conserve your time and energy for the things that matter most.
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Trim away non-urgent tasks: After you’ve built your priority matrix, eliminate the extraneous and unimportant tasks. And knock out quick batches of tasks that you know you can handle quickly, like responding to emails or following up on a query.
You’ll turn your concentration to more pressing matters and fill you with the satisfaction of checking a few boxes on your to-do list.
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Limit your tasks: No one can achieve everything at once. Even if you have a long to-do list, limit each quadrant to a handful of tasks. This avoids overwhelm and ideally gives you enough time to finish everything.
At this stage, it helps to estimate the time it’ll take to complete each task and create calendar blocks to ensure you’re not biting off more than you can chew.
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Prioritize your workspace: Pings from your work channels, unexpected visits from colleagues, and paying too much attention to your email cause serious interruptions to your concentration. According to one study, this doesn’t affect your quality of work, but it does affect your stress levels.
And that added stress is what could produce sloppy work rather than the time crunch itself. Prioritize time each day to concentrate on urgent and important tasks, and ask team members not to disturb you when you’re in a flow state.
Eisenhower matrix examples
Putting this theory into practice can help you see how it works before implementing it in your own day-to-day.
Here’s an example matrix for a public relations (PR) specialist who manages several clients:
Urgent and important:
- Respond to a negative press article about a client
- Review and make final edits on a press release for a new product launch tomorrow
- Respond to a client query about a misunderstanding with social media strategy
Non-urgent and important:
- Attend networking events to build relationships with influencers and media workers
- Become proficient in a PR analytics tool to enable better campaign tracking
- Upload the most recent campaigns to the company website
Urgent but not important:
- Respond to a non-critical email from a vendor
- Schedule next week’s social media posts
- Assist a colleague with a project that falls outside your regular responsibilities
Non-urgent and not important:
- Browse the web for unrelated industry news
- Attend a meeting a coworker could fill you in on
- Over-organize email your inbox into several colors, categories, and inboxes
Here’s another example for a digital designer who works as an independent contractor:
Urgent and important:
- Complete client revisions for a project due tomorrow
- Respond to a potential new client requesting a quick turnaround
- Fix a bug on a design asset that’s malfunctioning
Non-urgent and important:
- Update your online portfolio
- Research Google Ads for your website
- Re-examine long-term business goals
Urgent but not important:
- Respond to an informational interview request from a fellow freelancer
- Reorganize your digital filing system
- Organize the end-of-month expense report
Non-urgent and not important:
- Scroll through Pinterest for general inspiration
- Check every cell phone notification
- Invest too much time organizing your workspace
Create your own Eisenhower Matrix template
Depending on your workspace and learning style, try building a custom template you can reuse over and over again. That way, it’s specific to your workflow and task types.
Whether it’s a handwritten matrix or an integration on a project management app like Notion or Jira, it’s a good idea to have your template handy as tasks come through.
Consider personalizing your template to keep your focus or motivate you to power through your day. Color-coding, adding checkboxes, or creating clear headings like “do,” “schedule,” “delegate,” or “eliminate” can all add extra clarity to your to-do list.
Change your template until you find the right fit for your workflow and reorganize your priorities.
Get lost in the matrix
Work can throw a lot at you. Without the proper tools, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and lose focus. Finding what works best for your task prioritization is the first step to taking control of your workflow.
The Eisenhower Matrix is one option. Start by learning the difference between “important” and “urgent,” and build a template that matches your work style. The visual approach may be just what you need to step back and approach your days more holistically.
