Eisenhower matrix: sort what's urgent from what's important
Add your tasks, then place each one by two questions: does it matter, and does it have to happen now? Drag cards between quadrants, or use each card's Move menu.
Not sorted yet
1- Renew the parking permit
Do now
Urgent and important2- Finish the quarterly report due tomorrow
- Call the plumber about the leak
Schedule
Important, not urgent2- Plan next month's training
- Book a dentist check-up
Delegate
Urgent, not important1- Reply to the meeting room request
Drop
Neither urgent nor important1- Sort old newsletter subscriptions
Your tasks are saved in this browser only.
Urgent is not the same as important
The grid sorts tasks by two separate questions. Important: does it move you towards something you care about? Urgent: does it have to happen now? It takes its name from Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in a 1954 speech quoted a former college president: "I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent."
- Do now: urgent and important, such as a deadline today or a real emergency.
- Schedule: important but not urgent, such as planning, health, learning and relationships. Give each a date, or it never happens.
- Delegate: urgent but not important to your goals, like many requests and interruptions. Hand them on, batch them or keep them short.
- Drop: neither. Delete it or let it go.
Stephen Covey popularised the four quadrants in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), arguing that the Schedule quadrant is where lasting progress is made.
Sources
- Eisenhower DD. Address at the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Evanston, Illinois, 19 August 1954; Covey SR. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Free Press, 1989).
- Time management, on the Eisenhower method and its origins.
Questions
What if I have nobody to delegate to?
Read the quadrant as "minimise": batch these tasks, automate them, give them one short slot a day, or say no.
Almost everything lands in Do now. Is that normal?
It is common, and a sign to look again. Ask of each task what happens if it waits a day; many turn out to belong in Schedule.
Can I use it without a mouse?
Yes. Every card has a Move menu, up and down buttons and a delete button, so you can sort the whole board with the keyboard or on a phone.