10 Eisenhower Matrix Templates to Prioritize Work

Catching up with a friend or meeting with your coworker about a non-urgent topic can fall into this category. For example, answer an urgent email from your boss, or make a doctor’s appointment. Decide which tasks you should do first, which you can delegate, and which are optional by using the Eisenhower Matrix.

Let’s explore a transformative journey with ClickUp’s unique Eisenhower Matrix Templates. They’ll guide you to a whole new level of task prioritization, wiping out chaos with precision-designed matrix templates. Use this blank Eisenhower Matrix template for Microsoft Word and Google Docs to customize your daily, weekly, and monthly task lists. This is a great way to show your manager how you prioritize your workload. If you’re a project manager, share this document with stakeholders so that they understand how you categorize project tasks.

Free Work Plan Templates

The Eisenhower decision matrix template helps you prioritize tasks based on their urgency and importance. Instead of struggling to figure out in what order you should complete your tasks, decide which ones are urgent, which can be delegated, and which are optional. The template provides a presentable visual representation of which tasks to do now, which need to be scheduled, and which need to be delegated or deleted. Share this information with your team to guarantee that they are productive and efficient with their time.

eisenhower matrix template

They are important for the overall success of a project or achieving long-term goals, and should be where most of your energy is focused. This quadrant is also where personal tasks can be placed, such as relationship items, important fun activities, personal development, etc. Use task management software to determine which of your tasks are of highest priority. With task management, you can categorize, color-code, and delegate tasks to your team.

Limit tasks to 10 per quadrant

The RACI Matrix is an essential management tool that helps teams keep track of roles and responsibilities and can avoid confusion during projects. The name pretty much says it—this Agile framework is all about helping you maximize efficiency by powering collaboration between product managers and dev teams. Together you can go over each to-do on the project agenda and evaluate them in terms of costs and benefits.

eisenhower matrix template

Employees who engaged in self-mastery activities such as exercise or volunteering were more motivated the following day. Employees who relaxed with yoga, meditation, or by listening to music approached the workday more calmly. Eisenhower himself was a well-known bridge player — even playing nightly up to D-Day — and was famously criticized for his many golf trips while in office.

The four quadrants of the Eisenhower Matrix

Whether you’re a manager or an individual contributor, you’ll know exactly what to focus on at the beginning of each day—all priorities fall into Do, Schedule, Delegate, or Delete. No matter your best intentions, you need more than motivation to knock out your to-dos. An action item template—where you decide the who, what, and when of every task—can help you organize your workflows and get more done. Create an implementation plan template to break down your business goals into manageable, achievable steps.

Ultimately, the Eisenhower matrix is the best way to prioritize a to-do list. Once you’ve labeled your tasks by color, these colors will directly translate to your Eisenhower Matrix. Your blue tasks are your “delegate” tasks for quadrant three, and your red tasks are your “delete” tasks for quadrant four. These unimportant, non-urgent distractions are simply getting in the way of you accomplishing your goals.

Quadrant 4:  Not Urgent & Not important

The frequency you choose depends on how often new tasks come in. For example, if you get lots of new assignments each day, you may want to create an Eisenhower Matrix every morning. If you receive what are the 2 axes in the eisenhower box assignments less frequently, once per week might work better. For more help determining the priority and importance of your tasks, check out this individual productivity hub template set.

However, with continued use of distraction their moods and motivation worsened as the week continued. In other words, distraction in moderation was ok, but habitual distraction resulted in less work satisfaction overall. How do we decide which task to give our attention to at any given moment? Collab to drag priorities into place, gather feedback through cursor chats, and add new voices to the mix with audio functions.

Quadrant two is the “schedule” quadrant, and this is where you’ll place any tasks that are not urgent but are still important. Because these tasks affect your long-term goals but don’t need to be done right away, you can schedule these tasks for later. Important tasks may not require immediate attention, but these tasks help you achieve your long-term goals. Just because these tasks are less urgent doesn’t mean they don’t matter. You’ll need to thoughtfully plan for these tasks so you can use your resources efficiently.

  • Let’s explore a transformative journey with ClickUp’s unique Eisenhower Matrix Templates.
  • The other quadrants can look deceptively important, but overall, the tasks in quadrant II should be our priority.
  • Urgent tasks are unavoidable, but spending too much time putting out fires can produce a great deal of stress and could result in burnout.
  • Join millions of people who organize work and life with Todoist.

If it is not important or urgent, it may distract from main goals. According to Covey, all of the important pieces of our lives and projects should be within quadrant II, and most of our time should be focused on completing those tasks. The other quadrants can look deceptively important, but overall, the tasks in quadrant II should be our priority. Covey discusses how effectiveness goes up considerably once you focus most on quadrant II. When used to its fullest extent, this Eisenhower Matrix method will help you to prioritize, organize, and create discipline as you work to complete your to-do list tasks. You’ll tackle these tasks right after you tackle the tasks in quadrant one.

Learn how a bill of materials template helps keep you organized by housing all the information needed for the successful completion of your project. With a weekly to-do list template, you can create a new task list in seconds every Monday. Keep everyone on the same page and clearly communicate important information to stakeholders by creating a communication plan template in Asana. For additional resources about project prioritization, check out this comprehensive guide to project prioritization. Same with The Eisenhower Matrix, it sorts tasks into four categories to help you decide what to do first.

eisenhower matrix template