Wiebke Wetzel

Eisenhower Matrix

#issue analysis

The Eisenhower Matrix is a tool to sort tasks by priorities in one of 4 quadrants:

Important and urgent: these need to be done first
Urgent, but not important: delegate these, if you can
Important, but not urgent: block time to work on these tasks later on
neither important nor urgent: do not do them at all (if possible)

Definitions:
urgent = needs to be done now or very soon
important = will help you reach a goal or has impact on your life, your customers, your company

Goal

The Eisenhower Matrix is a tool to

• sort tasks by priorities
• identify tasks you want to delegate
• identify tasks you should not do at all

Attachments

Instructions

ask two questions for each task:

1. Is this task urgent?
2. Is this task important?

Sort the task in one of the 4 quadrants and decide what to do with it.

Background

Some common problems with the matrix are:

You struggle to differentiate between urgent and important. All tasks at hand seem equally urgent or important.
You can't delegate the urgent but unimportant tasks, because there is nobody to take them.
Tasks you find neither urgent nor important are important for somebody else. They need to be done.
You can't block time for important tasks which are not urgent, because you have too many urgent tasks

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