Your time is a valuable resource. Unfortunately, we often do not use it wisely. Effective use
of your time can greatly increase your productivity and give you more of what you really need,..
More Time for what is truly important and meaningful in your life.
Thankfully there is a very useful mental model that can help us by dividing our activities
into 4 quadrants. This time management model is called the Eisenhower Decision Matrix and
was popularized by Stephen Covey in his highly acclaimed book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People. The model itself is based off a quote from Dwight Eisenhower where he says, “I
have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important,
and the important are never urgent.”
So how can we know what is urgent or important and how we should prioritize? Keep watching
because you’ve come to the right place.
The Eisenhower Decision Matrix is divided into 4 quadrants which filter activities based
on whether the activity is Urgent or Not Urgent and Important or Not Important.
Quadrant 1 is labeled, “DO” because these tasks are both Urgent and Important and should
be done first.
Quadrant 2 is labeled, “DECIDE” because these tasks are Important and need personal
attention, strategy, or planned action.
Quadrant 3 is labeled, “DELEGATE” because these tasks are Urgent but they are not important
and therefore do not require our personal attention and are best delegated to others
if possible, in order to preserve our time for more important tasks.
Quadrant 4 is labeled, “DROP” because these tasks are both not Urgent and not Important.
These are the trivial time-wasting activities that may sometimes be pleasant to do but waste
our valuable time that is best spent in another area such as Quadrant 1 or 2.
<zoom into each quadrant and add the example talk and animated example imagery for the
sections below:>
In quadrant 1 we may encounter Urgent and Important events such as calling for emergency
medical care or signing to accept delivery for an important package. These are time-sensitive
tasks that are important enough to warrant our personal attention.
In quadrant 2 we may have tasks that we have planned to do and may also include taking
time to decide on future tasks for the to-do list. Tasks such as paying your credit card
that is due in a week or two or getting some regular exercise are also often important
enough for quadrant 2 but ultimately it is up to you to decide.
In quadrant 3 we could encounter tasks that are urgent such as answering a typical phone
call or taking the dog out for a walk and even cleaning up after the dog, but honestly,
we may want to try to delegate these when possible.
In quadrant 4 we have the tasks that may be best dropped completely in order to make best
use of our time, tasks such as playing more video games, killing some time on your ipad,
or even reorganizing your bookshelf are all tasks that could potentially be considered
unimportant and not urgent.
We have covered some hypothetical example situations but ultimately when you use this
mental model you will actively be sorting and categorizing whether you think a task
is urgent or important. So, what are some of the finer points that
can help us do that?
Where we get the most leverage from this mental model is when we act primarily from the important
but not urgent quadrant 2. It is here in the “Decide” quadrant that
we can focus on the important items that will directly move us towards our long-term goals.
This focus on long-term goals for quadrant 2 is a helpful metric for how important a
task may really be. If something moves us towards our long-term goals we can safely
assume it is important. This could be some of the tasks mentioned
earlier but it could also be things like building relationships, creating a personal mission
statement, making a vision board, or even doing some preventative maintenance. These
types of tasks may help prevent urgent tasks from occurring at all in some cases, as we
take care of important issues before they lead to later problems.
It is best if we can strategically organize our time to stay out of quadrant 3 and 4 as
much as possible as we apply our time and tactics to things of importance.
Ultimately, we decide whether something is urgent or important and we can get tricked
into thinking something is more important or urgent than it really is. Fortunately,
as we work on integrating this mental model into our latticework of understanding, categorization
becomes easier and we can develop an equilibrium centered on the achievement of the important
while minimizing the diversions.
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