"The most urgent decisions are rarely the most important ones." — Dwight
Eisenhower
Dwight David Eisenhower
was the 34th President of the United States, serving two terms from 1953 to
1961. During his period of presidency, he started space exploration (NASA),
created the Internet (DARPA), and built the Interstate Highway
System. Previously, he was a five-star general in the US Army, served as
the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II. After
war, he became President of Columbia University, and then served as first
Supreme Commander of NATO. Due to his incredible ability to sustain productivity
for years. many people study his productivity strategy. His most famous method
is Eisenhower Matrix.
Einsenhower Matrix
It is a 2x2 matrix that helps us decide on and prioritize tasks by urgency and
importance. Using the matrix below, we will separate our todo list based on four
possibilities:
- Important and urgent (tasks to do first)
- Important, but not urgent (tasks to schedule)
- Urgent, but less important (tasks to delegate to someone else)
- Neither urgent nor important (tasks to eliminate)
The key of this matrix is differentiating between urgent and important. Urgent
tasks require immediate attention, while important tasks contribute to our
long-term mission, values, and goals. The objective of using Eisenhower matrix
is to help us filter the noise from our decisions and concentrate on what really
matters.
Quadrant #1 : Important and Urgent
Those are tasks that require our immediate attention and contribute to our
long-term objectives. We should do it first in the morning. Examples:
- Responding emails from top customers and top employees
- Important deadlines that matter for our business or our careers
- Emergency issues with health or family
Quadrant #2 : Important, not Urgent
Those are tasks that don't have a pressing deadline, but help us achieve our
long-term objectives. We should schedule it or get those done in the afternoon
to night. Examples:
- Working on top priority projects
- Annual / quarterly / monthly / weekly planning
- Skills & knowledge improvement
- Socializing : family time, volunteering
- Quality me time : exercising, spending time with rewarding hobbies
Quadrant #3 : Urgent, but less Important
Those are tasks that require our immediate attention, but not really contribute
to our life goals. Those are probably important for others, but not important
for us. Mostly we need to delegate theme to someone else or just say no. If we
decide to delegate them, we should keep track of delegated tasks by email,
telephone or within a productive quick meeting to check back on their progress
later. Examples:
Quadrant #4 : Neither Urgent nor Important
Those are just primarily distractions. We should eliminate them. Examples:
- Watching useless TV programmes
- Scrolling through social media
Now we can use this matrix for broad productivity plans ("How should I spend my
time each week / month?") and for smaller / daily plans ("What should I do
today?").
Efficient Productivity Matrix
This is from my real life experience. What if everything is already in Quadrant
1 & Quadrant 2? Which tasks should I do first in Quadrant 1 or Quadrant 2?
In this case, Eisenhower matrix is not enough. We need to consider more
than importance and urgency. We need not only being productive, but also being
efficient. Effectiveness is doing the right things, while efficiency is doing
things right.
To manage all my important tasks, I use an "efficient productivity matrix" which
is a 3x3 box that helps me decide on and prioritize tasks by impacts and
resources required.
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Efficient Productivity Matrix : Top-left box is where "Work Smart"
happens, while top-right is for "Work Hard"
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Efficiency = Impacts / Resources
We need to realize that not all important tasks are worth the same. Some tasks
are producing high impacts that could be higher monetary values or higher chance
for us to successfully achieve our long-term missions, values, and goals.
Meanwhile some other tasks are still important but producing less impacts.
In the other side, we also need to realize that we need different amount of
resources to do each tasks. The resources could be our time, our efforts, our
money, or our people. And if we think clearly, high-impact task doesn't always
require high resources, vice versa. This is the key difference of work smart and
work hard.
Work Smart, Work Hard
After we filter our todo list so that it contains only important tasks, we put
each of them in one of the nine quadrants in 3x3 matrix above. Then, we should
start working from the top-left box (tasks that produce high impacts but require
less resources) toward to bottom-right box (tasks that produce low impacts but
require high resources). Working smart means working on tasks on the top-left
box and focusing our activities there. We should think hard to find what we can
do with 20% of our resources that can create 80% of the impacts.
However, sometimes we find situations to choose between tasks with high impacts
and high resources (box 2, 4, 7) and tasks with low impacts and low resources
(box 3, 6, 8). Top-right is where working hard is necessary, giving the extra
miles to achieve more than ordinary people.
Be Effective
Both Eisenhower matrix and efficient productivity matrix above help us to be
more productive and efficient. However, the most important thing is we need to
be effective. Peter Drucker in his book "
Effective Executive" share how to be an effective leader, which I summarize in these three key
points:
-
Get the knowledge we need
- What needs to be done?
- What is the right to do?
-
Plan and execute
- Create action plans
- Take responsibilities for decisions and communications
- Focus on opportunities rather than solving problems
- Ensure everyone feel responsible and accountable
Good things come to those who work their asses off and never give up!
