![]() In a 1954 speech, Eisenhower quoted an unnamed university president when he said, “I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. Eisenhower-the 34th President of the United States and a five-star general during World War II-presented the idea that would later lead to the Eisenhower Matrix. The Eisenhower Matrix is a way to organize tasks by urgency and importance, so you can effectively prioritize your most important work.ĭwight D. In this article, we’ll explain how to set up an Eisenhower Matrix and provide tips for task prioritization. The Eisenhower Matrix is a task management tool that helps you distinguish between urgent and important tasks so you can establish an efficient workflow. But how do you determine what to tackle first when you don’t have enough time to do everything in one day? With effective prioritization, you can increase your productivity and ensure that your most urgent tasks get immediate attention. Making a to-do list is the first step toward getting work done. In this piece, we’ll explain how to set up an Eisenhower Matrix and provide tips for task prioritization. Using the tool, you’ll divide your tasks into four boxes based on the tasks you’ll do first, the tasks you’ll schedule for later, the tasks you’ll delegate, and the tasks you’ll delete. ![]() Checking items off your to-do list is a beautiful thing-but it's also easier said than done.The Eisenhower Matrix is a task management tool that helps you organize and prioritize tasks by urgency and importance. The best way I've found to make sure you complete your tasks is through ruthless prioritization. That means deciding not to do things you'd really like to do. It also means deciding what's the most important task even when everything on your list feels crucial.īut if you can prioritize until you have only one thing to focus on right now, you can't help but get to work. First, Consolidate All of Your Tasks Into a Single Source Use the tips and techniques below to help prioritize your tasks. Your boss sends you an email, you get a Slack message from IT, a bill arrives in the mail, or a coworker asks for a favor in the hallway. In order to prioritize your task list efficiently, you need a master to-do list that contains all of the tasks you need to prioritize and complete from all of those sources.īefore you start prioritizing, pick a place for your master to-do list. That place could be a to-do list app, your email inbox, Slack, a paper notebook, or even a memo app on your phone. It doesn't matter where you keep your list as long as it contains all of the tasks you need to complete. If you do decide to use your email inbox, Slack, or another app as your master task list, you can use Zapier to automatically move incoming tasks from other sources to your master list. Here are a few examples of workflows you can use, or you can create your own automated Zap to get the job done.ĭelegation is another great way to quickly cut down your task list. Create a calendar reminder to follow up on it later or add it to a shared project: Getting it off your task list will relieve the pressure of seeing it there all the time.Īssign delegatable tasks to others, and if there's anything you're waiting on others for, get it off your list. ![]() Next, delete anything that you really don't need to do. Things that are worth deleting include tasks that have been on your list forever that you never get around to or things that provide little value compared to the effort involved to complete them.įor example, say you have a task on your to-do list to go through your filing cabinet, scan all of your documents, and save them to the cloud. You've been looking at the task for years and have never made time for it. So instead of continuing to look at that task and feeling guilty for never getting to it, delete it. If you don't want to forget a task you're deleting, move it to a separate "someday" list of things you want to do if you ever find yourself with time but nothing to fill it with. Once you're finished doing, delegating, and deleting tasks, what you have left are your deferred tasks. These are all things you need to do that will take longer than two minutes to complete. ![]() With a master list of your deferred tasks in hand, you're ready to start prioritizing. There are plenty of ways to prioritize tasks, and some may work better for you than others. Review the tactics below, pick the one that feels right, and then get to prioritizing. Take all of your tasks and assign each a priority based on this priority matrix from Steven Covey:Īnything that's due soon (or overdue) counts as urgent.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |