Welcome to the Priority Matrix, famously known as the Eisenhower Matrix. It's a powerful framework built on a simple truth often attributed to President Eisenhower: "What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important."
This tool helps you escape the "tyranny of the urgent" by forcing you to distinguish between what's truly important for your long-term goals and what's merely demanding your immediate attention. Use the matrix below to categorize your tasks and regain control of your time.
Tap and hold on any quadrant to scroll through tasks. Use the "Add Task" button above to categorize your activities.
Important & Urgent
⚡ Crises requiring immediate attention
🎯 Execute immediately, don't delay
Add urgent important tasks...
Important & Not Urgent
🎯 Important for long-term goals
📅 Plan and execute regularly
Add important planning tasks...
Not Important & Urgent
⚠️ Seems urgent but not important
🤝 Delegate to others or handle quickly
Add delegation tasks...
Not Important & Not Urgent
🎮 No contribution to goals
✂️ Minimize or eliminate completely
Identify time wasters...
Immediate action to resolve urgent issues
Prevent crises, long-term development
Learn to say no, delegate reasonably
Act decisively, save time
Add tasks to see priority distribution and recommendations...
The biggest challenge in using this matrix is accurately separating the important from the urgent. Here's a quick guide:
These demand immediate attention. They are often reactive, helping you respond to a pressing issue. Think deadlines, crises, and interruptions. They shout at you for attention.
These contribute to your long-term mission, values, and goals. They are often proactive and require planning and thought. They whisper to you about your future success.
These are crises and problems that require immediate handling. While you must deal with them, a day filled with these tasks leads to burnout. The goal is to minimize this quadrant by being proactive.
This is the quadrant of high-performers. It's for long-term planning, relationship building, and personal development. Spending most of your time here prevents tasks from ever becoming urgent crises.
These are the interruptions that can derail your day, like some emails or phone calls. The key is to handle them quickly, delegate them to someone else if possible, or learn to say "no" politely.
These are time-wasting activities that do not contribute to your goals. Be ruthless in identifying and eliminating them from your schedule (e.g., mindless scrolling, unnecessary meetings).
This is a sign that you are living in a "reactive" or "crisis" mode. While you must handle these tasks, the long-term solution is to dedicate more time to Quadrant 2 (Schedule). By planning ahead and working on important tasks before they become urgent, you will naturally reduce the number of crises that pop up.
At the start of each week, list all your major tasks. Categorize them using the matrix. Then, schedule dedicated blocks of time in your calendar for your Quadrant 2 tasks first. Fill in the gaps with your Quadrant 1 tasks. Identify Quadrant 3 tasks you can delegate, and consciously decide to ignore Quadrant 4 tasks.
Important + Urgent tasks that need immediate attention
Important but not urgent - plan and schedule these
Urgent but not important - delegate if possible
Neither important nor urgent - consider eliminating