There is one time management process I heard a few years ago that I have been following somewhat loosely, but I think it can help answer some of the questions above. It is called the Eisenhower Matrix. Using the 4-quadrants matrix below, you will categorize your priorities or tasks based on four possibilities of a task’s urgency and importance.
- Urgent and important (tasks you will do immediately)
- Important, but not urgent (tasks you will schedule to do later)
- Urgent but not necessary (tasks you will delegate to someone else)
- Neither urgent nor important (tasks that you will eliminate)
The great thing about this matrix is that while it’s best for your monthly or weekly planning process, it can also be used for your day-to-day execution.
While it’s self-explanatory what each quadrant means, I will share how I typically use this process monthly and weekly.
Box #1: Urgent and Important
These are the urgent tasks (maybe because I did not foresee them earlier or because some external event triggered them) and important (because something is dependent on it or something in which I have got the most context or knowledge). I try to prioritize as many as possible.
Examples of these types of my tasks are Other people’s goals and work needs, like following up with a prospect on the proposal, preparing requirements for job planning based on customer feedback, and following up with a candidate with offer details while you are also interviewing at other candidates, etc.
Box #2: Urgent but Not Important
These are the most crucial tasks that you need to manage appropriately as they distract you from working on your most important tasks. Delude Yourself It’s Good Use of Time. A natural tendency is to work on urgent tasks without really overthinking if they’re essential or not (i.e. are they going to move the critical needle of your goal or can somebody else do this instead of you).
I try to delegate these tasks as it’s less critical for me to be involved in them, and maybe somebody else is better suited to do it and probably can do it sooner than I can.
Examples of this type of my task are doing timely accounting, bookkeeping, taxes, etc. I suck at these, so I learned to outsource these to those who do it better.
Box #3: Important but Not Urgent
These tasks are essential (because I need to be involved) but not urgent (there is still some time to do them). This is your goal, where all the real magic happens. I tend to schedule these later parts of the calendar so that the urgent tasks are taken care of first, and then I can start working on these as time permits before they become critical. These should be split into smaller HPAs or used as a longer-term plan.
Examples of this type of task are: working on product strategy and roadmap, refining our vision and differentiation, creating new target markets or potential revenue streams, working on new marketing copy and website pages, etc.
Box #4: Not Urgent and Not Important
These items are mostly distractions. So, I try to delay them as much as possible or ignore them completely. This helps simplify and declutter my HPA and LPA, s and not feel overwhelmed. I get others to do these or outsource them as much as possible.
Examples of this type of my task are: surfing the internet during work time, attending networking events and conferences, meeting people over coffee/lunch without a specific agenda, etc. My time is precious, so I usually don’t allow these to be part of my working week.
While I regularly use this framework, I don’t use any specific tool to categorise each task diligently in different quadrants. That seems like overkill to me and makes it too time-consuming.
But just being aware of this framework back of my mind while I am planning a week or a month, I have found it useful to identify and plan my top priorities (HPA) to do first vs schedule some later, delegate and ignore other things.
