In Episode Eleven, we talk about the Eisenhower matrix. Imagine a square being split into four quadrants, and at the top of the square is the word important. At the bottom of the square are the words not important. On the left of the square are the word not urgent, and in the right side of the square the word urgent. Anything that fits into the bottom left quadrant, when it comes to professional personal tasks, we should just delete them. They are not urgent and not important. If we jump over to the right side of the square on the bottom, it’s not important, but it is urgent. If it’s not particularly important, odds are we can give it to someone else to get it done. Maybe at home, we delegate it to our kids. If we’re at work, we delegate it to an assistant or a lower-level entry staff. If it’s not that important, but it still needs to get done, someone with a lower capability can take care of it.

Next, we move to the top half of the square of the important half. If it’s important, but not urgent on the left side, we need to schedule that for later, make sure it gets done, just not right now. In that top right corner where it’s both important and urgent is where you should be spending your time getting tasks completed. Unfortunately, in our world, I think that’s where most of us spend our time. Most of the time we are constantly doing the most important and urgent thing as things become more important and more urgent.

If you’re able to organize all the things that you’re trying to get done into these four squares, it should at least provide you some clarity on where you should be spending your time. Do the things that are both important and urgent. Professionally, me and my business partner joke about it all the time. We say, “Hey, I’m going to go work on this thing.” We reply, “Okay, is it important and urgent?” Our most common response is, “I don’t know.” This is not a perfect system, but if you could spend most of your time doing the important and urgent things, you’ll get the most important and urgent things done. Thanks for reading the BlankScreen blog. Check us out on YouTube. We will see you on the next episode!