#4 BOX PRIORITY MATRIX PDF#

Long-term planning for your business, exercising, and hobbies that help you relax and recharge are all important. Learning new skills to advance your career, working on projects that challenge you to improve, and spending time to strengthen relationships with family and friends are all important.

Truly important tasks are the ones that will move the needle-however you define that. We tend to think everything that’s urgent is important, and everything that’s important to someone else must be important to us too. The hardest thing about plotting your tasks onto the Eisenhower matrix is deciding which box they belong in. To use the matrix, simply write your tasks or projects into the boxes where they belong.Īlthough it sounds simple, understanding what’s truly important and what’s not can take some effort. Image credit: le monsieur via Josh MedeskiĪs you can see in the example above, the matrix’s four boxes have different labels:

#4 BOX PRIORITY MATRIX PDF#

(Though if you do prefer worksheets, here’s a printable PDF version from The Art of Manliness) The simplicity of this tool means you don’t need any equipment or specially printed worksheets to use it-you can simply draw four boxes on a sheet of paper or a whiteboard. It’s a square, broken into four more squares, like a window. The tool is useful regardless of who created it, and the quote is a good one to keep in mind when evaluating your workload. I wasn’t able to prove that he said that, let alone had any connection to the Eisenhower matrix itself, but it doesn’t really matter. What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important. Eisenhower ever used something like this, the matrix’s focus on the difference between urgent tasks and important tasks connects it to this quote, often attributed to Eisenhower: Though nobody seems able to prove that Dwight D. The tool I’m talking about is called the Eisenhower matrix. In particular, when I’m feeling overwhelmed this method helps me to visualise everything I have going on, and figure out where I can change my workload or schedule so I’m not so stressed. It was so useful the first time I tried it that I still use it to this day. Prioritise your work using the Eisenhower matrixĪ few years ago I read about a tool for evaluating and prioritising work.

4 box priority matrix