202106241531 Eisenhower matrix of task value

The Eisenhower matrix is a tool that can be used to prioritize tasks based on its urgency and importance. It takes a leader's perspective and includes the concept of being able to delegate urgent, unimportant tasks. People who have no one to delegate will always have the option to 202106241530 Delegate to the floor, but won't have the ability to delegate tasks that must be done.

In this method, we define what is urgent or not and what is important or not. If something is urgent and important, we should do that first. This is followed by important but not urgent, urgent but not important, and lastly neither important nor urgent.

Ideally, we'd never personally do things that are outside the first, most important, quadrant. Those quadrants can be planned, delegated, and eliminated respectively. Note that planning to do something later will eventually promote the task to urgent and important: a.k.a. needing to be done by ourselves or someone else.

Delegating is more subtle because in a perfect world, you'd take something that's not important or urgent to you and delegate it to someone whose goals and interests align so that this task would be both important and urgent for them. The goal is not to delegate in order to pawn off bad tasks to others. Those sorts of things should be eliminated if possible. Delegating thus becomes an act of finding ways to empower people to pursue their goals and entrusting them with something that you also find at least in some way important or urgent.

Stephen Covey uses this matrix extensively throughout the course of his book The 202106221713 Seven habits of highly effective people. In particular, it's used as an example of how we can put 202106241528 First things first.

The Matrix

Quadrant I. Urgent and important (Do) – important deadlines and crises

Quadrant II. Not urgent but important (Plan) – long-term development

Quadrant III. Urgent but not important (Delegate) – distractions with deadlines

Quadrant IV. Not urgent and not important (Eliminate) – frivolous distractions

A similar but distinct measurement for task/project value is the 202204091039 Impact vs effort model of task value.