The Eisenhower Box is a well-known, simple decision matrix for dealing with tasks such as a to-do list, based on whether they’re urgent or important.

I reckon it has multiple flaws. But by fixing each flaw in turn, we end up with a better matrix – very useful for planning your day. It can also be simplified further.

What to do?

The great problem of life is what to do. Your life consists of millions of decisions large and small, from making coffee to running for President. Which should you do, and when, and how?

There’s all the things to be done at work and home, constant demands and distractions, unfulfilled ambitions at the back of your mind – and barely time to think, let alone get through all this stuff.

Happily, a box has been invented to help you out. A bit like an Amazon Echo – but made only of paper & ink – it not only tells you how to deal with everything on your plate, but magically makes some of it disappear.

Or so it is claimed.

The box

The Eisenhower Box (or Matrix) was invented by Stephen Covey in his bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It was later named after US President Dwight Eisenhower, who once said:

“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”

The point being, people spend too much time on urgent-seeming but unimportant distractions, instead of on important, non-urgent matters – such as planning, people, and future opportunities. Short-term trivia divert you from what really counts.

To solve this, the Eisenhower Box tells you what to do with each task that happens along, based on whether it’s important or urgent:[1]

The kind of tasks that end up in each cell, starting top-left, are:

Important & Urgent (green): things that need action ASAP, such as important meetings/calls/emails, tight deadlines, and crises. They’ve got to be done, so – like the box says – you’d better Do them.
Important & Non-Urgent (blue): big-picture, longer-term, proactive things you don’t do enough of – planning, identifying opportunities, talking to people, recruiting, training, self-improvement, etc. Such things are rarely pressing, but can prevent the scrambles and crises of the stressful green cell. So Schedule these tasks in your calendar, to avoid procrastinating them for ever.
Unimportant & Urgent (orange): e.g. unnecessary meetings, phone calls, interruptions,

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