What is Eisenhower Time Management?

And how could it help you reach your goals

What is so special about Eisenhower Time Management? Another desperate effort to get some order in the chaos of life? 

Do you find yourself constantly “putting out fires”, trying to get through a never ending list of tasks, obligations and social to-dos, yet never getting any closer to your goals? Are you in a situation where there are never enough waking hours to get everything done and unfortunately no one sells extra hours into your day. Does it feel like your goals are slipping out of reach because lack of time?

We live in an information overload society – too many people, too many distractions, too much information and too many tasks competing for our attention. Too often we don’t stop and analyze our situation but instead are in a constant reaction mode, taking which ever task appears to be the most urgent.

Perhaps you have heard of Eisenhower Time Management - also called the Eisenhower Matrix? Sounds boring enough, so you may never have taken the time to read about it. But actually it is an interesting method of finding some order into your task-chaos.

Even at the danger of you leaving this site banging the proverbial door shut behind you and never returning, I’ll say it: being busy all the time can be a sign of a kind of laziness. Not saying you are a lazy-no-good, no. What I am saying, however, is that it is a matter of lacking the self-discipline to plan your tasks. Which, in turn, is the very thing that forces you to be in constant reaction mode.

So let’s have a look how the Eisenhower Time Management system might help you in this planning.

The Eisenhower Matrix makes you concentrate on importance instead of urgency. Which are not the same thing, even though we often think they are.

Don’t be fooled by the official sounding name of Eisenhower Matrix - it sounds like something companies would use in team work (and yes, companies do use it), but it can be used by ordinary people in their private lives, too. It provides a template for assessing priorities and makes decision-making more systematic. Plus, it is easy to use and understand, even when you're under pressure and time constraints.

I like the Eisenhower Matrix because it is a visual representation of tasks and time management and I am a visual person. All you need is a pen and paper or if you like, you can use a computer. There are apps as well you can use for this.

This method is credited to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in 1954 quoted president of Northwestern University, Dr J. Roscoe Miller:

The matrix is designed to help people create an effective to-do list with four quadrants where the horizontal line shows the urgency (left is urgent, right is not) and the vertical line shows importance (up is important, down is not):

This method of prioritizing tasks helps you get the most out of your day as you work to complete things that are both urgent and important first before moving onto the less pressing ones.

As you see, there are but two perspectives: urgency and importance - and that is what matrices are: a system that looks at things from two different perspectives.

So, let us start by looking at Important and Urgent tasks

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