The Time Management Matrix (AKA Eisenhower Matrix) is a time management method that uses a 4 quadrant matrix to help you understand the importance and urgency of a task. I remember reading about Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix for the first time and thinking to myself, this doesn’t make any sense to me.
The Time Management Matrix (TMM) states that all tasks can be categorized based on urgency and importance. Urgency refers to tasks that require immediate attention, while importance focuses on tasks that align with our goals and values.
You do this by creating a 4 quadrant matrix with urgency across the top as an x-asis, urgent first, not urgent as the second quadrant up top. Then importance down the side as the y-axis, with important and not important being on the bottom quadrant. That creates a breakdown that looks like:
- Urgent & Important tasks/projects to be completed immediately
- Not Urgent & Important tasks/projects to be scheduled on your calendar
- Urgent & Unimportant tasks/projects to be delegated to someone else
- Not Urgent & Unimportant tasks/projects to be deleted
Thankfully, when I started getting into the heat of leadership and balancing a lot of things, prioritization of my work, my teams work and my department/business needs, I was able to remember this system. TMM is very powerful for someone that has a lot of different things coming at them, I didn’t see the strength of it as someone just writing code, but as a leader it was an easy repeatable way to stay on top of the things that were constantly evolving/changing/new.
This by itself isn’t enough for me, but it’s is VERY powerful…if you can’t tell, my end state will be a mixture of a few. 🙂
I hope this was helpful! Thanks for being here! Take care!
