Intentional Prioritization: Eisenhower Matrix

Prioritize your work with the Eisenhower Matrix, originally developed by President Eisenhower to organize high-stakes issues.

Tool Summary

The Eisenhower Framework is a prioritization tool to help you understand how to use time more effectively. It is originally credited to President Eisenhower in a variety of different public speeches and was formally used as a productivity framework in Franklin Covey’s book in 1989 “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” 

The framework asks you to first categorize your work or tasks based on two aspects: importance and urgency. Then depending on how you categorize your work you will have a 4 bucket priority list and an action to take for each bucket.

How to Apply

The Eisenhower Framework can be applied effectively in a few ways. The first is to think more critically about your personal definitions of important and urgent. 

What does important mean to you? Is it work or tasks tied to company goals, team goals, personal goals, or values? Rank importance for you.

What does urgent mean to you? What is your perceived deadline and what created that deadline? What will occur if you miss the deadline?

Sometimes thinking more intentionally about the importance of and urgency of work can be enough to more effectively manage your time.

The next step to applying the Eisenhower Framework is to categorize your work into 4 buckets (1) urgent and important, (2) important but not urgent, (3) urgent but not important, and (4) not urgent nor important. These are listed in priority order.

In each priority category, there are different actions. For (1) urgent and important work you need to complete it first. 

Ideally, important work should never become urgent so consider: is there an external force causing a fire drill? How often do these occur? How can you block time for unanticipated urgent and important work? If it is not external, how and why did you procrastinate and how can you avoid this in the future? If something is urgent and important you will usually be forced to work reactively which can prevent you from producing the best quality results. 

(2) Important but not urgent work is where you accomplish your goals or make real progress that is high impact. This is where the majority of your time should be spent. Spending the majority of your time on this bucket of work means that you can be proactive rather than reactive.

(3) Urgent work that is not important should either be rescheduled or delegated. It is time-bound but does not have a meaningful impact.

(4) Not urgent nor important work should be avoided, delegated, or time-boxed. If you have to do it, can you keep it to a manageable amount of time that still allows you to accomplish the priorities above?

Once you apply all three steps of the Eisenhower Framework you may want to consider Franklin Covey’s Big Rocks, Little Rocks. It suggests through the metaphor of a jar to be filled with big rocks, little rocks, and sand, that the best way to fill your jar, available time, is to start with the big rocks- urgent and important work, and then continue to fill your jar with the little rocks- urgent but not important work, and lastly fill the rest of your jar with sand- not important or urgent work. 

When planning your week ahead- plan to set aside time for your big rocks, important work, first.

Measuring Results

When you are successfully prioritizing your work two things occur. (1) you know what your key priorities and focuses are for any day or week. You know what to spend your time on and what to say no to. If someone asks you “what are you focused on today, this week, this quarter?” you can answer that question easily. 

(2) You feel in control of your time and workload. What feeling in control means to you is of course subjective. Consider what is your desired mindset and how can this tool help you get there.

Sources

“President Eisenhower used to arrange his affairs so that only the truly important and urgent matters came across his desk. He reportedly discovered that the two seldom went together. He found that the really important matters were seldom urgent, and that the most urgent matters were seldom important.” 1973 an article about “Managing a Small Business”

Covey, S., 1989. The seven habits of highly effective people. New York: Simon and Schuster.