The Eisenhower Matrix, also referred to as Urgent-Important Matrix, helps you decide on and prioritize tasks by urgency and importance, sorting out less urgent and important tasks which you should either delegate or not do at all. It helps to determine the activities which are important and the ones which do not deserve your attention at all. The brainchild behind the famous Eisenhower Matrix is Dwight D. Eisenhower.
One of his famous quotes is, “most things which are urgent are not important, and most things which are important are not urgent.”
Coming towards the matrix, the matrix basically categorizes your tasks into 4 quadrants according to what you need to do at a particular time during your day.
These 4 quadrants are:
- Do
- Decide
- Delegate
- Eliminate
1. Do
The first quadrant of the Eisenhower Matrix, Do, consists of your most important tasks. The activities which need to be done urgently. The tasks with a deadline approaching or the ones that cannot be delayed generally fall in this category.
2. Decide
The 2nd quadrant of the Eisenhower Matrix is Decide. It constitutes of the tasks which are important, but not necessarily urgent. This could include an array of responsibilities ranging from professional emails, follow-ups, to more personal appointments and commitments.
3. Delegate
3rd quadrant of the Eisenhower Matrix is Delegate. This category refers to the tasks which are not important, but urgent. Although it sounds counter-intuitive, because naturally your first instinct would be that aren’t tasks which are urgent, important too? Not necessarily!
4. Eliminate
The last category of Eisenhower Matrix is Eliminate. These consists of tasks that are essentially your productivity killers. They do not contribute at all towards your goals. Identify these activities and eliminate them to give your productivity a boost.
Here is my Priority Matrix based on Eisenhower Matrix:
Efficiency:
It helped me to be more efficient and productive just by looking at the matrix and prioritizing my tasks helped me to do everything in the category of urgent and important tasks first and leave the rest.
Challenges:
Challenges i faced were that i need to make my mind first in order to follow the matrix because just planning and writing down things doesn’t help, efforts put into a work matter a lot.
Conclusion:
Time Management is very important skill to be learned and to be mastered in order to have a better lifestyle. By managing well time, you will no longer suffer from stress and your works/tasks will be done on time and with great quality. Every person get 1440 seconds in a single day it depends on how well he/she manages time and be productive.
“Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance”