Master Time Management with the Eisenhower Matrix for Productivity (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Have you recently had the feeling there is more to do than you can achieve in a day, a week or even a month? A good time management strategy solves this problem and can dramatically reduce stress and increase your own productivity at the same time. The Eisenhower Matrix by former US President Eisenhower supports you in prioritising tasks by urgency and importance and sorting out those less urgent or important tasks which you shouldn't do yourself. This results in four quadrants with different work strategies. We call the first quadrant the Do First sector as its tasks are important for your life and career and need to be done today or tomorrow at the latest. You could use a timer to help you concentrate while trying to get as much of them done as possible. An example of a number one task could be a review of an important document for your manager. The second quadrant we call the Schedule sector as its tasks are important but less urgent and you should list those things that you need to put in your calendar here. An example of that could be a long planned return to the gym. The third quadrant takes up things you could delegate as they are less important to you than others but still pretty urgent. You should keep track of delegated tasks by email, telephone or within a meeting to check back on their progress later. An example of a delegation could be somebody calling you and asking for an urgent favour or requesting you step into a meeting. Maybe you could delegate this responsibility by suggesting a better person for the job or give the necessary information back to the caller and have him deal with the matter himself. The fourth and last quadrant is there to help you sort out and eliminate the things that you really shouldn't do at all. Discover and stop bad habits like surfing the internet without a reason or other forms of procrastination like gaming too long just to find an excuse for not being able to deal with important tasks in the first and second quadrant. And that's it. Give it a try yourself or head on over to eisenhower.me for more information. And don't forget, as Dwight Eisenhower once said, what's important is seldom urgent and what's urgent is seldom important.