The Eisenhower Box

General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, serving 2 terms from 1953 to 1961. Before that General Eisenhower was the 5-star Army Supreme Command of Allied Forces in Europe in World War II. He planned the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and France. At other points in his life he served as the President of Columbia University and was the first Supreme Commander of NATO. Yet he also found time to pursue hobbies like golfing and oil painting!

I think it’s fair to say that he was a productive man! And it should come as no surprise that his time management, task management, and productivity strategies have been studied by many people. Perhaps his most famous productivity strategy became known as the Eisenhower Box (or Matrix).

I realize that you may not be founding a new government agency, revolutionizing some technology, or planning an armed invasion (You’re not - are you?), but you can still use the general’s simple decision-making tool right now.

How it works

Organize your tasks into four possibilities:

1. Urgent and important (tasks you need to do immediately).
2. Important, but not urgent (tasks you can schedule to do later).
3. Urgent, but not important (tasks you can delegate to someone else).
4. Neither urgent nor important (tasks you can eliminate).

Below is an example of the Eisenhower Box all filled out.

Note that there IS a difference between Urgent and Important. I’ll let General Eisenhower explain it:

“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.”