Glossary
Eisenhower matrix, explained
The Eisenhower matrix sorts tasks into four boxes by two questions, is it urgent and is it important: do it now, schedule it, delegate it, or drop it. It is named after US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and was popularised by Stephen Covey.
What it means
The insight is that urgent and important are different things. Urgent tasks shout; important ones move your goals. The trap is spending the week on urgent-but-unimportant work, while the important-but-not-urgent box (planning, learning, health, building) is where the long-term results are.
How to do it in a calendar
- When you plan the week, list your tasks and mark each one urgent and/or important.
- Important but not urgent: give it a time block this week. This is the box a calendar is for.
- Urgent and important: do it first.
- Urgent, not important: batch it or hand it off.
- Neither: delete it.
An example
On Sunday, a freelancer finds that "update portfolio" has been important-not-urgent for two months. It gets two 60-minute blocks on Tuesday and Thursday, and is done by Friday.
Common mistakes
- Only ever doing box one. If everything you do is urgent, nothing important gets planned.
- Sorting without scheduling. The matrix only helps if box two gets real time.
Questions
Where does the name come from?
From a line Eisenhower used in a 1954 speech about urgent and important problems. Stephen Covey turned it into the four-box matrix in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989).
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