The Eisenhower Matrix

Busy at work? But not challenged? ‘Bored-out‘?

Try the Eisenhower Matrix and see if you can lead a more fulfilling life. Named after Dwight David Eisenhower who was the 34th President of the United States, the matrix is not just about allocating and organising your ‘to-dos’, it gives you very clear prescriptions about how to approach them:

  1. Urgent and Important thing: Do them now
  2. Important but non-urgent things: Schedule a time to do it
  3. Urgent but unimportant things: Get someone else to do it
  4. Non-urgent and unimportant things: Why are they even on your ‘to-dos’?

Apply it not just to work but to most other things in life; purchase services that allows you to outsource all the bits that fall into category 3. And for category 4, if it’s something you enjoy doing and ‘want’ to do them, they don’t belong to your ‘to-do’ but falls into leisure, so no need to stress over them.