Leaders regularly ask our executive coaches for help to deal with impossible workloads. Often they’re struggling with lengthy to-do lists that they’re plowing through but realize they’re not making progress on the big, strategic stuff.
Between high-level planning and strategy, project deadlines and deliverables, dealing with unexpected emergencies or challenging issues, fielding requests from team members and managing the never-ending inundation of emails, most folks are feeling strained (if not completely overwhelmed).
We hear things like:
- “If I didn’t need to sleep, I might be able to get ahead.”
- “There’s always something or someone who needs my attention.”
- “This isn’t sustainable. I don’t want to burn out, and I want to have a personal life.”
- “I don’t even know where to start. I can’t afford to miss anything and yet I’m not making progress.”
And leaders aren’t the only ones navigating these feelings of overwhelm, of course. Their team members are also struggling and coming to them for help and guidance.
Not knowing how to manage multiple demands, deadlines, requests and priorities has a significant impact on productivity and well-being. As we’ve discussed before, living in a constant state of busyness and urgency is not healthy.It’s time to revisit the Eisenhower Matrix, which is one of the most powerful (and simple to use) task management tools we share with our clients. This matrix helps to prioritize tasks by sorting them by urgency and importance into four quadrants.
The History Behind this Powerful Tool for Task Management
The Eisenhower Matrix is, as you may have surmised, inspired by something former US president Dwight D. Eisenhower said in a speech in the 1950s. According to our research into the origin of the matrix, Eisenhower quoted J. Roscoe Miller, who was a president at Northwestern University, when he said:
“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important.
The urgent are not important and the important are never urgent.”
Thirty years ago, author Stephen R. Covey published his bestselling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In it, he used Eisenhower’s words to create the task management tool we know as the Eisenhower Matrix.
How to Use the Eisenhower Matrix
You can use this matrix for your own tasks and to help set priorities with your team members.
The first step is to make a to-do list. Consider all of the tasks and priorities that you have. Some folks will include personal as well as professional items. It’s up to you.
When you’re working with a group to establish team priorities, clarity and open communication are critical. Folks contribute enthusiastically when there have been efforts to build team trust. How do you know this has been achieved? Leaders will hear bad news as well as good news.
When creating the to-do list, consider:
- What’s on the radar?
- What’s pending or due soon?
- What are the big, important, game changing things that need to happen?
- What’s necessary?
- What are common distractions?
- What might you have missed?
If you’re doing this with a team, it’s an opportunity to talk about and clarify roles and accountability. It’s also valuable to help your team members understand how their work aligns with the organization’s goals.
Once you have your to-do list, it’s time to sort the tasks into the four quadrants of the Eisenhower Matrix. This tool helps you to prioritize and manage your time effectively. For many folks, just having a plan for where to start is a game changer.
You can either draw a simple box with four quadrants or use our handy worksheet.
Quadrant One: URGENT AND IMPORTANT
The tasks you’ll do first. These are usually things that need your immediate attention, either because they have time-sensitive deadlines or there could be consequences if they’re not dealt with quickly.
Quadrant Two: NOT URGENT BUT IMPORTANT
The tasks to schedule (and ultimately, the quadrant that you want to be working in almost all of the time – with few or no items in Quadrant One). These are tasks that are important but in the long-term. They aren’t urgent and usually require planning or are related to bigger goals.
Quadrant Three: URGENT BUT NOT IMPORTANT
These are tasks that can be delegated. While they might be urgent in the sense that they interrupt the flow of work and need attention, they’re not important to larger goals. These items can be delegated so they don’t distract from the more important actions.
Quadrant Four: NOT URGENT AND NOT IMPORTANT
These are tasks that waste time and should be either managed carefully, left for times when the workload is lighter or even deleted. These time wasters can be postponed or eliminated because they are low priority.
Categorizing Tasks
Next, start sorting the items on your to-do list into the four quadrants. Here are some examples of how these tasks are prioritized on the Eisenhower Matrix.
Quadrant One: URGENT AND IMPORTANT
- Finishing a key client presentation that has a very tight deadline.
- Helping a major constituent with an urgent request.
- Dealing with an emergency situation or crisis, like a natural disaster or health issue.
- Solving a technological failure (something that would have even more negative consequences if it’s not dealt with quickly).
- Registering for something important that has a short deadline.
Quadrant Two: NOT URGENT BUT IMPORTANT
- Planning a long-term project.
- Strategic planning.
- Networking with potential clients.
- Skill development.
- Leadership development.
- Individual tasks or sub-goals of a major project.
- Team building.
Quadrant Three: URGENT BUT NOT IMPORTANT
- Unexpected texts or interruptions at your door.
- Coworkers who ask for work-related advice.
- Requests for letters of recommendation.
- Handling emails or phone calls.
- Routine administration.
- Some social media notifications.
Quadrant Four: NOT URGENT AND NOT IMPORTANT
- Unnecessary meetings (updates that could be emails instead).
- Browsing social media or the internet.
- Trivial tasks or chores (cleaning out your inbox or tidying the supply closet).
- Elaborate labeling and organizing.
- Detailed spreadsheets for simple lists.
- The websites you surf when you’re bored or anxious.
Once you have tasks sorted into the four quadrants, you can see where you need to invest time and resources. You can focus on the most urgent items and get them off the to-do list. This leaves more time for quadrant two, especially because you can delegate things in quadrant three and postpone or eliminate quadrant four tasks.
Note that Quadrant Two – IMPORTANT AND NOT URGENT – is where leaders should spend the bulk of their time.
Keep the Momentum Going
Some folks will colour-code the tasks within each matrix to identify the top priorities within each quadrant. It can also be helpful to limit the number of tasks within each quadrant to 10 tasks – moving items over from the to-do list as tasks are completed. This helps to mitigate feeling overwhelmed.
Incorporate the Eisenhower Matrix into your daily routine. Make a habit of revisiting the matrix and updating it with any new items on your to-do list as well as removing tasks that have been completed.
It can be helpful to use project management software to help establish a clear timeline for goals. At Padraig, where several team members might be working on different parts of a project, we use ClickUp to stay on top of deadlines. It’s easy to identify action items, roles and deadlines for each milestone along the way to completion.
When you master daily tasks, you can achieve big goals. As we said earlier, the goal is to have few (or no) tasks in the URGENT AND IMPORTANT quadrant. It’s a much more effective use of your time and energy to be focused on the IMPORTANT AND NOT URGENT tasks – before they’re a crisis that is urgent and rushed.
Other Time Management Techniques
It’s tricky to stay focused in an office full of distractions. There are strategies to help you stay on track no matter what, like the popular Pomodoro Technique. This is when you work in very focused 25-minute intervals with brief one- or two-minute breaks between work intervals.
Consider using our ultimate goal setting worksheet and setting clear performance goals with your team.
Setting clear boundaries and incorporating mindfulness techniques into your daily work can also be used in conjunction with the Eisenhower Matrix to help deal with overwhelm.
Coach’s Questions:
Would you say that you and your team members are busy or productive? Who is feeling overwhelmed? What steps can you take to manage time and identify priorities better? What can you do to move toward a daily focus on important items so that you have fewer urgent tasks?
