What is the Eisenhower Matrix?
The Eisenhower Matrix, sometimes referred to as the Eisenhower Decision Matrix, the Eisenhower Box, or the Urgent-Important Matrix, is a task management tool that helps arrange and prioritize tasks based on their urgency and importance. It consists of four categories: urgent and important, not urgent but important, urgent but not important, and neither urgent nor important. Depending on which category a task falls into, specific strategies can be applied to manage it effectively.
The Basic Idea
In our all-too-busy lives, we often find ourselves overwhelmed with everyday tasks, making it difficult to know where to start. We might prioritize the tasks we enjoy the most or the ones that take the least time. But as the day goes on, we often realize that there’s no way we’ll be able to complete everything on our to-do list.
Often, we are resistant to asking for help. We therefore bite off more than we can chew, but this can leave us burnt out or with half-complete to-do lists. We might prioritize the wrong tasks and end up having to complete the most important ones late at night. “There must be a better way,” we find ourselves thinking.
Studies of human behavior have shown that people are very good at identifying and completing tasks that are both important and urgent, and assigning a low priority to tasks that are unimportant and nonurgent.9 What we’re not so good at is prioritizing important (but perhaps not urgent) tasks over those that are urgent or feel urgent. We’re all familiar with this feeling—it’s called the ‘urgency trap’ or the ‘mere-urgency effect.’
The Eisenhower Matrix is a time-management strategy that helps you determine which tasks should be prioritized, which can be delegated, and which can be tackled at a later time—or not at all.
Who can define for us with accuracy the difference between the long and short term! Especially when our affairs seem to be in crisis, we are almost compelled to give our first attention to the urgent present rather than to the important future.
– Dwight D. Eisenhower in his 1961 address to the Century Association1
