The Eisenhower matrix, explained.

The four quadrants

Draw a square and split it into four. Importance runs up the side. Urgency runs along the bottom. Every task lands in one of four boxes.

1. Do it first: urgent and important

Real deadlines with real consequences. A client problem, a filing date, a broken system. Do these now, yourself. If this box is always full, it's a warning sign. Many quadrant 1 crises started life as quadrant 2 work that nobody scheduled.

2. Schedule it: important, not urgent

The work that moves the firm forward. Planning, hiring, training, building relationships, fixing processes. Nothing forces it to happen today, which is why it rarely happens at all. Put it in the diary with a date and an owner. This is the quadrant the matrix exists to protect.

3. Delegate it: urgent, not important

It has a deadline, but it doesn't need you. Hand it to someone it suits, or to a system. If nobody can take it, do it fast and keep it small. Watch for work that feels urgent only because someone else is chasing it.

4. Drop it: neither urgent nor important

Habits, busywork and low-value requests. Stop doing them. If dropping something feels risky, ask what would happen if it stopped for a month. Often the answer is nothing.

Urgent vs important

The matrix only works if you keep the two words apart. They feel similar in the moment. They are not the same thing.

An urgent task that isn't important: a colleague needs a form signed before lunch. An important task that isn't urgent: deciding who succeeds the founder. Both are real work. Only one of them will shout for your time.

Before you place anything, write down what "urgent" and "important" mean for this exercise. For example: urgent means it must be done within four weeks. Important means it supports one of our three goals for the year. Teams skip this step more than any other. See why that causes trouble.

How to use it, step by step

1. List everythingWrite down every task or initiative competing for time. Don't sort as you go.
2. Agree the definitionsDecide what urgent and important mean here, with a time frame and a goal.
3. Place each itemAsk the two questions one at a time. How urgent? How important? Place it on the grid.
4. Act on each quadrantDo quadrant 1 now. Put quadrant 2 in the diary. Hand off quadrant 3. Cross out quadrant 4.
5. Review itUrgency changes as deadlines move. Revisit the grid weekly for personal tasks, or quarterly for a team's initiatives.

Try it now with a team in the live demo below. Ten simulated voters have scored eight initiatives for a small advice firm.

Where it came from

The matrix is named after Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Second World War general and 34th President of the United States. The grid itself came later. It started with a remark.

On 19 August 1954, Eisenhower addressed the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He said:

"I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent."Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954. He credited the line to an unnamed former college president.

The grid came later. Stephen Covey turned the idea into a four-quadrant time management matrix in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in 1989. He expanded it in First Things First in 1994. Covey's numbering, with quadrant II as "important, not urgent", is still the most common way to label the boxes. The name "Eisenhower matrix" took hold as productivity writers credited the idea back to its source.

You'll see it under several names: the Eisenhower box, the Eisenhower method, the Eisenhower principle, the urgent-important matrix and the priority matrix. They all describe the same two-by-two.

Eisenhower matrix vs Covey's time management matrix

They are the same grid with different labels. Eisenhower's version is usually labelled by action: do, schedule, delegate, drop. Covey labelled the quadrants I to IV and focused on where people spend their time. His point was that effective people live in quadrant II and plan their way out of quadrant I.

Common mistakes

• Putting everything in "Do it first". If more than a third of your items land there, your definition of urgent is too loose. Tighten the time frame.
• Confusing loud with urgent. A task isn't urgent because someone keeps asking. Ask what happens if it waits.
• Leaving importance undefined. Important to whom, for what goal? Without a stated goal, people rate by gut feel and the grid reflects mood.
• Delegating to nobody. "Delegate it" needs a name. If there's nobody to hand it to, the task is really in a different box.
• Never scheduling quadrant 2. Sorting is the easy part. The value comes from putting quadrant 2 work in the diary and protecting it.
• Using it once. Urgency decays. Last quarter's grid is out of date.

Using it with a team

The matrix was built for one person. When a team uses it, two new problems appear. The first opinion anchors everyone else. And people disagree about what's urgent without realising it.

The fix is to vote before you talk. Have everyone place each item privately, then reveal all the votes at once. Look at the spread as well as the average. Discuss the items where people disagree, then vote again. That's how the Eisenhower matrix for teams on this site works. For a full session plan, see how to run a prioritisation workshop.

Questions