Do you find yourself juggling a million things at once, not sure what to do next, under the sway of time and tasks which are all out of your control? Well fear not! You are not the only one and many successful people often find themselves with plenty of things to do. The question is, how do you know which ones to do and when? This is where the Eisenhower Matrix comes in.
The Eisenhower Matrix is a priority tool which helps you decide on which tasks are urgent and important, and which ones are not. It is named after Dwight David Eisenhower, an army general and politician who served as the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 to 1961. Being such a busy man as he was, he was inspired to create the world-famous Eisenhower method, a simple method that helps you prioritize your tasks and gain clarity and control over your time. In a simple diagram it is as follows:
Perhaps you can see why this method is also referred to as the Urgent-Important Matrix. Often times, we suffer under a pressure of tasks which are both urgent and important, either because we leave things for the last minute, or we find it difficult to access which tasks are not so urgent or important. This tool allows you to sit down and think about your tasks into simple categories, allowing you to make the decision of what is a priority and what is not. By tackling those high priorities first, we allow tasks to fall into the ‘Later’ category. But ultimately where we want most of our tasks to end up is into the ‘Delegate’ category, handing tasks over to others so that you can then, again, start back at the ‘Do’ category with a fresh set of tasks which have evolved and progressed from the previous cycle of tasks, and so on and so forth.
Practice visualizing your tasks with these categories in mind, as yourself what is the most important and most urgent and work down from there. This will allow you to clear the clutter of endless tasks in your mind, put them in a tidy spot, so you can have more room to focus on new and more exciting tasks.
How are you prioritizing and focusing on those tasks which are going to get you to your desired goal? If you are not sure how to answer that question, take some time to think about the Eisenhower Matrix. If it can work for the President of the United States, then we are sure it can work for you!
