Take the Next Step: Work-Life Balance

The Eisenhower Matrix: How to be More Productive

Eisenhower’s strategy for taking action and organizing your tasks is simple. Using the decision matrix below, you will separate your actions based on four possibilities:

1. Urgent and important (tasks you will do immediately).
2. Important, but not urgent (tasks you will schedule to do later).
3. Urgent, but not important (tasks you will delegate to someone else).
4. Neither urgent nor important (tasks that you will eliminate).

**Urgent vs. Important: Urgent tasks are things that you feel like you need to react to. Important tasks are things that contribute to our long-term mission, values, and goals.

The great thing about this matrix is that it can be used for broad productivity plans (“How should I spend my time each week?”) and for smaller, daily plans (“What should I do today?”). The Eisenhower Matrix is also useful because it pushes us to question whether an action is really necessary. It helps answer the following questions: 1) What am I working toward? & 2) What are the core values that drive my life?

Here is an example of an Eisenhower Box:

 

 

Now your turn! On a blank piece of paper complete your own Eisenhower Box.