Eisenhower matrix - How to prioritize, what matters

“The most urgent decisions are rarely the most important ones.”—Dwight Eisenhower

We are the result of the decisions, that we made in our past life. It may be the education stream selection like I selected the post-graduation stream as computer and become a software developer, it may be the physical health, mental health, it may be your social life, it may be the habits you choose. Your decision of choosing, decides your future.

We always complain that we don't have time, we are always busy, we are fatty etc. This all are the outcome of our bad choices. We need to manage our time and life properly.

So, it is very important that we should choose right decisions today, so we never regret in future. Now the question is, how we take right decisions? 

We take hundreds of small decisions in our daily life, and some of them are very quick. It's fine to take some less important decisions quickly without much thought but there are many important decisions, we need to make in our life, that may define our future. For those important decisions and slightly less important decisions, we need to give proper thought and then take decisions and do the actions.

To make the right decisions, Dwight D. Eisenhower has developed a decision metrix. It is very simple and help a lot to make the right decisions in our life.

Eisenhower’s productivity is legendary not only because of his accomplishments but also because his methods stood the test of time and worked in various situations. Through various roles and environments, Eisenhower delivered with remarkable consistency for decades.

The Eisenhower Matrix is his best-known technique. It’s a simple decision-making tool that you can  start using today.

The Eisenhower Method

The Eisenhower Matrix has four parts, which you use to categorize the work in front of you:

     1: Important, but not urgent

     2: Urgent and important

     3: Urgent but not important

     4: Not important and not urgent

If you think about it for a second, you realize that the Eisenhower Matrix can help you not only with prioritizing what you work on today, but also with deciding which big projects to work on. The matrix helps you distinguish between what is important and what is urgent.

Whenever something comes on your desk, begin by breaking it down and deciding how to proceed.

The key to making the Eisenhower Matrix work is distinguishing between the urgent and the important.

Urgent tasks are time sensitive, sometimes because we have put them off until we can’t anymore. These tasks can be anything from responding to emails and returning phone calls, to realizing that you’re almost out of gas and have a report due in 20 minutes.

If we’ve put off doing an urgent task that’s also important, then when we finally tackle it, we’re probably not going to think about it as much as we had intended to or as much as we should. We’re setting ourselves up to make poor decisions.

Important tasks are more strategic. They are things we want to get done, such as launching a new product. These tasks are deliberate. We want to pay attention to them and they mean something to us. Rather than being reactive and irrational, we can, with the right planning, be thoughtful and engaged. Because we’re not reactive, we can avoid mistakes. This will free up future time.

For those, who always excuses that they are busy. Tim Ferriss said the below quotes:

“Being busy is a form of laziness — lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”—Tim Ferriss

Ask yourself when you’re going to deal with things that are important but not urgent. Ask yourself why you’re avoiding what’s important but not urgent. Are you scared of something? Are you procrastinating? Are you too distracted?

How to use Eisenhower Matrix in Practice

I use this matrix routinely as part of my productivity system. It’s helped me stay focused on where I want to go and not get too bogged down in things that don’t add much value.

The conventional wisdom is that you should do the next thing on your to-do list.

Important and non-urgent tasks are scheduled and generally worked on in the early afternoons.

Important and urgent tasks are worked on right away or scheduled and are always evaluated.

The urgent and not-important tasks are usually, though not always, delegated. Take help from someone to help you on this kind of tasks.

The not important and not urgent tasks in the list, no need to attend, just remove from the list. It will save you lot of extra time. example of such tasks: Watching television, doing time pass on mobile, you tube etc.

Time management should be your key decision of the day. Do it properly.

-Keep reading, Keep learning

-Mahesh