Struggling to work out what to focus on next?
Like most people, I have a wide range of jobs, deadlines, emails and bills to pay - tasks that seem so immediate, it's hard to find time to do things that aren’t urgent.
I will normally prioritise urgent jobs rather than ongoing problems that don’t feel like an emergency. This results with me constantly deprioritising jobs that don’t require my immediate attention and I am left feeling overwhelmed.
This is where the Eisenhower method comes in - prioritise your jobs in the right order.
The Eisenhower Method
The Eisenhower Method is a decision-making tool that utilises the importance and urgency between tasks to organise and prioritise workload. The method stems from a quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower "I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent."
The method splits tasks into four boxes, urgent, less urgent, important and less important. Following the headings, you prioritise which tasks you should focus on first and which you should delegate or delete.
Urgent tasks require attention right now. Important tasks help achieve life long goals. As there is no clear deadlines its easier to tell yourself you will do it later. Write a list of everything you need to do, then categorise into the four boxes. This method helps identify which activities to focus on.
We need to remember to leave room for happiness. Life is not always about problem solving, its about fulfilment and joy. Our life enjoyment is not less important and shouldn't always be delegated. We should all prioritise scheduling in non interrupted time for important jobs.
One you know your priorities, organise your life around it. You also have to be willing to say no to some things.
How to use the Eisenhower Matrix
1. Important/Urgent tasks are done with immediate action.
e.g. your house is on fire
2. Important/Not Urgent tasks have an end date.
e.g. filing your tax return
3. Unimportant/Urgent tasks are delegated.
e.g. buying Dan from accounts a birthday card
4. Unimportant/Not Urgent tasks and removed.
e.g. updating your Instagram with your latest latte art creation
Who is Dwight D. Eisenhower?
General Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) was the 34th president of the United States. Eisenhower was also the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces. He became NATO’S first supreme commander after the Second World war, witnessing the post-war reconstruction of Germany.
In 1953, Eisenhower became president. He was the first Republican in over three decades to win this title. Succeeding as both as an American soldier, and then an elected leader, Eisenhower had to make many difficult decisions in his lifetime, normally under immense pressure. To help deal with the many important issues he faced, he developed the concept behind what would later be called the Eisenhower Matrix.
Disadvantages of the matrix
The Eisenhower matrix is not perfect.
- It doesn’t work if your work environment is constantly changing, it works best if your tasks are static.
-It is very simple, some tasks go beyond the matrix and cant be assigned into the 4 different categories.
- It can be too structured. The matrix can be limiting with its rigid format, not everyone works best like this, and will need a different type of productivity tool
Ingenious ink
We have a selection of 3 notebooks based on the Eisenhower method: task Matrix, Task Matrix Extra and Task matrix Maxi - Designed to help you track where your time is going. Plot all your to do tasks on our Task matrix based on urgency and importance, then follow the instructions based on which box they ended up in.
