How to use the Eisenhower Matrix for high performance

It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.
Bruce Lee

The time management matrix, also called the Eisenhower matrix, helps the user to distinguish tasks and projects according to importance and urgency. While important tasks are those that produce a desired, in the sense of a value-creating, result, urgent tasks are those that require immediate action.

Examples:

An email or a ringing phone are usually urgent but probably rather unimportant tasks, while a customer complaint is usually both urgent and important. Innovations, planning, and the like, on the other hand, are important but not necessarily urgent in nature. Personal routines such as small talk, on the other hand, are neither important nor urgent.

Activities and tasks of the first quadrant (high urgency and importance) as well as of the second quadrant (high urgency but unimportant) outweigh the professional activities of employees- often determined by others such as the supervisor. An increased density of tasks in these two quadrants can lead to a feeling of being overwhelmed and stressed – which causes many to take refuge in the fulfillment of tasks from the fourth quadrant (low urgency and importance) in the sense of “positive” procrastination. By doing this, we escape the negatively-imprinted feelings of stress, but we live and work in a continuous pause phase that ultimately only increases our stress. A far better method here would be to focus on the tasks from the third quadrant (important, but not urgent). These tasks which are opportunities rather than problems, allowing us to achieve important results and move forward, because they hinder problems rather than merely being a reaction to them. As such, they are of great importance to long-term success and should by no means disappear from the schedule in the wake of their low urgency. Time stress in the form of urgent problems can be minimized by third quadrant tasks. Therefore, consider a balance of tasks within their quadrants according to the description above. Ideally, you should first devote yourself to the important tasks before you devote yourself to the urgent tasks.

But the problem is that no general assumptions can be made about tasks and their allocation to the quadrants of the matrix. What is important and urgent for one is not important and urgent for all. Therefore, tasks should be assigned individually after they have been collected. Especially the importance of a task cannot be manifested by others in contrast to the urgency- one can manifest this only on the basis of own personal principles and values.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
Annie Dillard

References and further reading material:

• Covey, S.(1989).Seven habits of highly effective people. New York: Wiley
• Lakein,A. (1989). How to get control of your time and your life. New York: McKay