Greetings all!
I love this quote
by Dwight Eisenhower: “What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is
seldom important.”
Do you ever react
to something before considering if this something is truly important and urgent? Do
you waste time on tasks that do not serve you? Hint: if you spend a lot of time
on social media and/or watching mindless TV, the answer is probably yes to both
questions.
How can we
supercharge our decisions and actions so we act intentionally and do not just react? The Eisenhower Matrix might help! It is also called The Time Management Matrix, The Eisenhower Box, The Eisenhower Method, and The Urgent-Important Matrix.
Named after Dwight David Eisenhower, an American army
general and the 34th President of the United States from 1953 to 1961, it helps prioritize decisions and
actions and eliminate time-wasters! I have been using
this quadrant productivity technique for years, and I love it!
The Eisenhower
Matrix separates decisions/priorities/tasks into the following four categories:
The “Do” quadrant:
Important and Urgent – do it now:
This is the quadrant for deadlines and crises. I find this quadrant to be the easiest in terms of decision-making
and the toughest in terms of execution. Have you ever had an important presentation/assignment due tomorrow? When the deadline is looming, there is no
decision - to do or not to do. The answer is “to do!” And if the task was an easy
one, it would have been done already.
The “Decide” quadrant:
Important and Not Urgent – schedule to
do later:
These are the
tasks we might procrastinate on. When the deadline is
several months into the future, how many of us actually start chipping away
early in the game? The solution that has worked for me is to assign a deadline
before the actual deadline to have some extra time for the unexpected or last-minute changes.
The “Delegate”
quadrant: Urgent, but Not Important – delegate
to someone else
Who can do this task so you can focus on the “Do” and “Decide” quadrants? The "Delegate" quadrant works best in an environment with several people and might not even be available to you. For example, I cannot delegate my blog research
and writing to someone else.
The “Delete” quadrant:
Not Urgent and Not Important – eliminate
I find this last quadrant
very interesting and oriented towards self-discovery. This is where the bad habits and
time-wasters usually lurk. This is where you might be nudged to explore, re-affirm
or re-assess your identity, values and goals. The goal - and the challenge! - is to be honest with yourself and to spend some time soul-searching.
How many of your everyday actions
do not support who you want to be? Those belong in the “NOT Important and NOT Urgent”
quadrant and should be eliminated (or at least dramatically decreased)!
For example, if
you are trying to affirm your identity as someone who prioritizes self-care,
then instead of scrolling social media late into the night, sleep is a better choice.
However, keep in
mind that the same task/decision could fall into a different quadrant under different circumstances. If you are a social media manager at a company, then scrolling
social media is your job and is important and/or urgent. But for the rest of us? Choose sleep!
So what is
Important on your to-do list right now? Go ahead and do it or at least schedule it!
What
did you think? Drop me a line!
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