Eisenhower matrix examples for managers and teams.
Real tasks, sorted into the four quadrants. Start with a manager's week, then see how a leadership team, a project team and a small firm would fill the grid.
New to the matrix? Read the Eisenhower matrix explained first. The short version: do what's urgent and important, schedule what's important, delegate what's only urgent, and drop the rest.
Example 1: a manager's week
A team manager with eight direct reports. Urgent means it must happen this week. Important means it affects the team's quarterly goals or a client.
- Career conversations with two team members
- Draft next quarter's goals
- Train a deputy to run the weekly meeting
- Fix the handover process that keeps failing
- Sort out an unhappy client before Friday
- Finish the budget submission due Thursday
- Cover a team member who is off sick
- Rewrite slides nobody asked to change
- Read every reply-all thread
- A recurring meeting that no longer decides anything
- Book the team lunch
- Pull last month's numbers for finance
- Approve routine expense claims
Notice the pattern. The handover fix sits in "Schedule it". Leave it there long enough and it becomes next month's "Do it first" crisis.
Example 2: a leadership team's strategy day
A financial advice firm with 25 staff. The leadership team has eight initiatives for the year and room for about three. Urgent means it must start within 90 days. Important means it supports the three-year plan.
| Initiative | Room average | What the votes showed |
|---|---|---|
| Agree a founder succession plan | Schedule it | Rated the most important item on the list. Nothing forces it this quarter, which is why it keeps slipping. |
| Document the onboarding process | Schedule it | Important for growth, with no hard deadline. Both groups agreed. |
| Start a next-generation client programme | Schedule it | Protects future revenue. A long-term build. |
| Launch the client portal | Do it first | Already promised to clients, with a date. Close agreement. |
| Segment clients and review fees | Do it first | Leaders rated it more urgent than the team did. Votes were widely spread, so it needs a conversation. |
| Hire a second paraplanner | Do it first | The team put it high on both axes. Leaders put it lower. See below. |
| Replace the CRM | On the line | The team said do it first. Leaders said drop it. The average sits near the centre and means little. |
| Refresh the website | Delegate it | Some urgency, low importance. A job to hand off, not one for the leadership team. |
These are the items in the live demo. Open it to see how ten people voted, including where the two groups disagreed. The demo votes are simulated.
Example 3: a project team
A six-person team three weeks from launching a new service.
- Do it first: fix the bug that blocks sign-up, get legal sign-off on client terms, confirm the launch date with marketing.
- Schedule it: write the support guide, plan the first client feedback round, agree how you'll measure success.
- Delegate it: update the internal wiki, book the launch call, collect screenshots for the announcement.
- Drop it: polish the admin screen nobody outside the team sees, a second round of logo tweaks.
Example 4: a small business owner
An owner who runs the business and still does much of the client work.
- Do it first: chase an overdue invoice that affects payroll, respond to a complaint, file the VAT return.
- Schedule it: plan the next hire, review prices, spend a morning a month on the business rather than in it.
- Delegate it: order supplies, answer routine enquiries, update the social media page.
- Drop it: networking events that never produce work, re-checking work that the team has already checked.
Examples by quadrant
Urgent and important (do it first)
- A client deadline this week
- A security breach or system outage
- A regulatory filing due in days
- A key person resigning
Important but not urgent (schedule it)
- Strategy and planning
- Succession and hiring plans
- Training and coaching
- Writing down core processes
- Building relationships with clients and referrers
Urgent but not important (delegate it)
These are tasks with a deadline that don't need you. Booking travel, scheduling meetings, routine reports, most phone calls and emails marked urgent by someone else, and approvals that follow a fixed rule.
Neither urgent nor important (drop it)
- Meetings with no decision on the agenda
- Reports nobody reads
- Re-doing work that is already good enough
- Checking email every few minutes
When the team disagrees
Look back at "Hire a second paraplanner" in example 2. In the demo, the wider team placed it high on urgency and importance. The leadership group placed it lower on both. Averaged together, it lands in "Do it first" and looks settled. The average hides the most useful finding of the day. The people doing the work feel stretched. The leaders see a hire they could schedule for later.
This happens on almost every list. People read the same item differently, or they define urgent differently. A shared matrix on a whiteboard hides it. Private votes and a visible spread bring it out. Why this happens, and what to do about it.
Sort your own list with the team.
Paste in your initiatives. Everyone votes on their phone. The reveal shows the average and the spread.