Why does it sometimes feel like no matter how hard we try the “important” things never get done? Instead, everything feels urgent, the day fills up with other people’s fires, and the work that actually matters slides to tomorrow…again. When work gets busy and stressful it can be easy to default to a complex system of tracking or completely reorganizing the way you handle all the stuff coming at you. But one of the most effective ways to break the cycle is to ask two simple questions. Is this important? Is this urgent?
Dwight D. Eisenhower made these questions famous in what is known as the Eisenhower Matrix. Although he wasn’t actually the one who created the matrix. He borrowed the idea. In a 1954 speech, Eisenhower was repeating a line he credited to an unnamed college president, and it was Stephen Covey who later turned those two questions into the four-quadrant grid most of us have seen.
Run any task through the two questions and it lands in one of four quadrants.
Quadrant I: Important and urgent — the real deadline that’s today. Do it now.
Quadrant II: Important but not urgent — the project with no due date yet, or the skill you keep meaning to build. Schedule it and protect that time. This is the quadrant where your best work lives.
Quadrant III: Urgent but not important — the coworker in your doorway with a “quick question.” Hand it off, deal with it fast, or let it wait.
Quadrant IV: Neither — color-coding your inbox for the third time this week. Drop it.
Each quadrant is a type of task, and a way to decide what to do with it. The key point of the Eisenhower Matrix is to give you language and context to make the choice intentional. The matrix isn’t a complex system. Most of the time it’s an intuitive thought process. But when there’s too much coming at once and it all blurs together, write your tasks down and label each one. Sorting them into the four quadrants gets the noise out of your head and makes the next step obvious. Think of it less as a chart to fill in and more as a way of deciding.
One additional idea to keep in mind when asking yourself whether something is important and urgent: those definitions aren’t static. What’s not urgent today can easily become urgent tomorrow. That quarterly report is a calm “important but not urgent” three weeks out, but the afternoon before it’s due, it’s urgent and jumps to the front of the line. Nothing is stuck in a quadrant; it’s wherever it fits right now. So re-ask the two questions as often as needed.
Urgency likes to play tricks on us. We’re usually wired to chase whatever’s loudest — the buzzing phone, the “quick” favor — even when it’s the least important thing in front of us. Researchers even have a name for it: the mere urgency effect. The two questions slow you down just enough to tell the difference, so your day goes to what matters instead of whatever shouted last.
So, to put it to work this week, pick one moment when you feel that pull to react — the next ping, the next interruption. Pause and ask yourself two questions. Is this important? Is this urgent? Do it a few times a day and you’ll be surprised how much of your “busy” was never important at all.
Got a productivity tool you swear by, or one you’ve always wondered about? Send it my way: garth@experiencebetterllc.com. I’m working through them one at a time.