The Eisenhower Matrix
What is the Eisenhower Matrix?
The Eisenhower 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.
In our all too busy lives, we often find ourselves with so many different tasks to complete that it’s difficult to know where to start. We might decide to first tackle whichever will take the shortest amount of time to get it out of the way, or the one we enjoy the most. But as the day goes on, we frequently see that there’s no way we’re going to complete everything on our to-do list.
Often, we are resistant to asking for help and 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 first and be left to complete the most important thing in the late hours of the night. “There must be a better way,” we find ourselves thinking.
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.
The Basic Idea
There are a number of cognitive biases that impede our ability to manage our time effectively and efficiently. The projection bias causes us to take on big tasks when we feel optimistic, inaccurately projecting that we will continue to feel that way in the future. Similarly, the optimism bias leads us to believe we are going to be more efficient than we are, so we might take on a task that is too big for us to handle alone. Bikeshedding describes our tendency to spend too much time on menial tasks because it is easier to have an opinion on simpler matters than to try and tackle the complex ones. The restraint bias causes us to overestimate the level of control we have over our impulse behaviors and underestimate how distracted we might get while trying to complete our to-do list.
With all these various biases leading us astray, it is no surprise that we find it difficult to know what to prioritize. However, tools like the Eisenhower Matrix can help us overcome these biases by rationally categorizing our tasks by urgency and importance.
The Eisenhower Matrix is a four-category tool, with two columns and two rows. The columns are labelled ‘urgent’ and ‘not urgent’, and the rows are labelled ‘important’ and ‘not important’.2 Depending on which category your activities fall into, there are strategies for how best to deal with each one.
Activities in the urgent & important category should be done immediately. Activities that are not urgent & important should be scheduled for a later date – but you must ensure to stick to that schedule and not put them off. Activities in the urgent & not important section should be delegated to someone else. Lastly, activities in the not urgent and not important category should be deleted altogether.2
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
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Sekoul is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. A decision scientist with a PhD in Decision Neuroscience from McGill University, Sekoul's work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals and has been presented at conferences around the world. Sekoul previously advised management on innovation and engagement strategy at The Boston Consulting Group as well as on online media strategy at Google. He has a deep interest in the applications of behavioral science to new technology and has published on these topics in places such as the Huffington Post and Strategy & Business.
