The Eisenhower Matrix is an especially useful tool
for sorting your tasks into one of four categories:
important and urgent, important and not urgent, not important but urgent, not important and not urgent. Why is this useful? Think about everything
you do each day. Do you usually get
everything done? You don't, or maybe you're
spending too much time doing tasks that
really aren't very important. How does this work? Something that's both
important and urgent is something you absolutely have to get done, perhaps right away. Running out of a burning
building comes to mind, but there are other
more mundane examples, such as finishing a report for your boss that's
due this afternoon. Something that's
important but not urgent is something that potentially will bring
you great value, but you don't have
to do it right away. For example, doing some
financial planning is important, but most likely you
don't have to do it absolutely right now. If you've run out of
important and urgent tasks, take a look at your important
but not urgent list. Moving along, we come to the not important and
not urgent category. Watching cat videos
and scrolling through social media feeds
are good candidates. Finally, we arrive at not
important, but urgent. What could possibly go here? Suppose your coworker pops over while you're in
the middle of writing a budget proposal and
wants to show you the latest funny cat
video on their phone. It's urgent, because you have to immediately turn your
attention to the interloper. But it's clearly not important. While you do need some
breathing space during the day and a few minutes of cat videos might help
preserve your sanity, it's better to spend as
much time as possible in the important but
not urgent category. If you're not careful, tasks
from this category might migrate over to the important
and urgent category, which means you'll
be doing the work in panic mode and
sacrificing quality. Doing research today for next week's report
it's better than waiting until the last minute and overlooking important
items in your rush. While you do need
to spend some time doing urgent but
unimportant things, you absolutely want
to stay away from the not important and
not urgent category. But what about
sanity-preserving cat videos? Well, if it comes to that, a few minutes wouldn't hurt. In this case, you
might consider it to be a non-urgent but
important item. After all, preserving your
sanity is important, isn't it?