Eisenhower Matrix

If you don’t know what an Eisenhower Matrix is, it’s a tactic to decide what to work on next. You can put each task into the correct category based on whether the task is urgent or not, and important or not.

So for me writing a blog post is urgent and important each day. And sending a design to a client is both urgent and important as well. But buying a Christmas gift is important but not urgent so I schedule it for a specific day. Same with a dentist appointment.

According to the matrix everything that is urgent and not important you should delegate, meaning hire someone to do it for you. But I mostly do everything myself so I don’t delegate but schedule those tasks too.

The most important part, and the thing that completely changed how I handle my to-do list, is the rule that tasks that are not important and not urgent should be deleted. That was a new thing for me. I had almost never deleted anything from my to-do list so it kept growing and growing until it reached a few hundred tasks. There were things like ‘play Terraria‘ which I still want to do but it’s neither urgent nor important so I deleted it. Same with my ideas for side projects – I moved them to my ‘Ideas’ page in Roam. There’s no reason for them to be on my to-do list when I am not even sure which of those ideas I will work on.

Now my to-do list is much more manageable. It’s also helpful to ask myself if the task that I am working on now is truly an important and urgent one. Or am I procrastinating and working on something easier but not important?