Urgent vs Important Activities
The key to understanding the Eisenhower method is learning the difference between “urgent” and “important” tasks.
Important: Important tasks line up with your values and help you achieve your main goals. They often focus on the long term and may not produce results immediately. This makes it easy to neglect them in the short term for more urgent tasks.
Urgent: Urgent activities are time-sensitive, requiring immediate attention. By putting off important tasks long enough, they eventually become urgent—creating stress and pressure to finish them on time.
An Eisenhower Matrix requires us to define which tasks are urgent and which are important. Once you know where each task fits, you can prioritize your tasks and work more efficiently.
How to Use an Eisenhower Matrix
Each quadrant in an Eisenhower Matrix represents a different level of priority. By evaluating which tasks are important, urgent, or a combination of the two, you can then decide how to best manage them.
Quadrant 1: Do first
Quadrant 1 contains your “important and urgent” activities. These are tasks that have both high importance and urgency.
Focus on completing these tasks first. There are usually two types of tasks that end up in this quadrant: tasks that you couldn’t foresee and tasks that you procrastinated. As you fill out this quadrant, consider which tasks you left to the last minute and plan how to avoid procrastinating them again in the future. One method to reduce future stress is to provide yourself extra time in your schedule to account for unforeseen tasks and give you a buffer for any work that’s fallen behind.
Quadrant 2: Decide when
Quadrant 2 includes “important but not urgent” activities.
In other words, you need to complete them someday, but there isn’t an immediate deadline for them. These tasks help you achieve your goals, but they are often neglected because they aren’t urgent. To avoid procrastination, decide when you will work on each task. Define clear deadlines to help build these activities into your schedule.
Quadrant 3: Delegate
Quadrant 3 is where many people get stuck. This is the “urgent but not important” section.
These tasks typically prevent you from working toward your main goals. Tasks in this quadrant often come from other people. For example, your co-worker may ask you to review a presentation for them that is due in a couple of hours but doesn’t apply to your areas of responsibility. Try to minimize working on these types of tasks by politely declining or delegating them when possible.
Quadrant 4: Do it later or eliminate
Quadrant 4 contains the lowest priority items. These are the “not important and not urgent” activities.
Ultimately, these items serve as a distraction to your important tasks. The best solution is to eliminate them from your priorities altogether or push them back to a better time to finish them—ideally when you don’t have as many important tasks to work on.
