Time management exercise: the Eisenhower Matrix

Sometimes we lose track of all the tasks. The Eisenhower Matrix, named after former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, can help here. You need a piece of paper and a pen and about ten minutes of time.

This is how the Eisenhower Matrix works:

1. Draw four fields on a sheet as shown above. Label the top and left sides with “important” and “unimportant” as well as “not urgent” and “urgent”. Now take your to-do list and assign all tasks to these categories.

2. Maybe your daughter’s birthday is in a few days and you still need to prepare the party? Clearly: important and urgent. You should take care of these things as quickly as possible.

3. Do you have boxes full of all sorts of odds and ends under your bed? Decluttering here could be important. Who knows what treasures are hiding under your bed? However, it is not urgent. Set a date for when you want to take care of it.

4. Have you just received an email from your sports club asking whether you can organize a cake sale at the club festival at short notice at the weekend? The request is urgent, but perhaps you have more important things to do.

5. The original Eisenhower principle calls for “delegating” these tasks – which of course is rarely possible in everyday life. Consider whether you can simply politely decline requests that overtax your capacity.

6. Some things are neither important nor urgent, but still take up time, like scrolling through social media for ages. Although such activities are rarely on our to-do list, it can still be worth jotting down a few of these “time wasters” in the field at the bottom right.

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