In relation to activity administration, I’ve tried all of it. I’ve used Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Monday, Notion, and so on. I’ve constructed Gantt charts, positioned sticky notes on bodily Kanban boards, and used pen and paper to make listing after listing. I’ve adopted the Getting Things Done technique. I’ve even tried a stack of index playing cards with a binder clip cleverly referred to as a “Hipster PDA.” Yeah, that was a factor.
Nothing caught.
Till now.
I exploit a system. I keep on high of duties, delegate issues to the precise folks, comply with up with folks once I must, and schedule my time, so I’m not frantically attempting to complete every little thing proper now.
My new system? An Eisenhower Matrix. I created it by means of Microsoft’s OneNote app, however a lot of the components may very well be accomplished on a spreadsheet or perhaps a desk in a doc.
An Eisenhower Matrix did something no other task management tool could do – help me stay on top of my #ContentMarketing tasks, says @thatgirlrandi via @CMIContent. #Productivity Click To Tweet
What’s an Eisenhower Matrix?
President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously stated, “I’ve two sorts of issues, the pressing and the essential. The pressing are usually not essential, and the essential are by no means pressing.”
From this quote sprang the Eisenhower Matrix, a productiveness framework to prioritize duties. It’s a two-by-two quadrant with 4 squares. The y-axis consists of “essential” and “not essential,” and the x-axis covers “pressing” and “not pressing.” You’ll place your x-axis above your y-axis, leaving room to write down like this setup:
Click to enlargeBe aware: Traces are for illustrative reference solely.
Every sq. has a label – do (essential and pressing), resolve (essential and never pressing), delegate (not essential and pressing), delete (not essential and never pressing).
Right here’s how the execution works:
- DO duties are to be accomplished now. It might imply this hour, this week, or this month, however I desire to outline “now” as “right this moment.”
- DECIDE duties require you to resolve when to finish them. Schedule time in your calendar to finish these duties earlier than any individual fills the time block with one more assembly.
- DELEGATE duties have the significance of being accomplished right this moment (or this week), however you shouldn’t have the time or capability to finish them, so you’ll delegate them. (Extra on this later.)
- DELETE duties are usually not price your or others’ time and power. Both take away the duty or rethink its significance and transfer it to delegate.
Whereas I exploit the Eisenhower Matrix for my duties and don’t share it with my workforce, you’ll be able to create a matrix to your particular person or workforce issues. (If anybody on my workforce must see mine, it’s accessible by means of my Sharepoint server.)
By classifying tasks based on important/not important and urgent/not urgent, you can do, decide, delegate, and delete them, says @thatgirlrandi via @CMIContent. #Productivity Click To Tweet
Listed below are the steps to create an Eisenhower Matrix in Microsoft’s note-taking device OneNote.
Step 1: Arrange every axis
Label the web page “Eisenhower Matrix.” On the primary line, label your x-axis, typing “URGENT” and “NOT URGENT.” Ensure that to go away area for the y-axis labels (to be added subsequent) and in between the 2 x-axis classes, so you could have area so as to add the duties beneath every.
Subsequent, label your y-axis, typing “IMPORTANT” adopted by “NOT IMPORTANT,” leaving area between every to write down the duties.
Your ensuing display screen ought to look one thing like this:
Click to enlargeTIP: Use headline type font to your axes labels in order that they’ll clearly stand out out of your duties.
Step 2: Label the quadrants
Now, you’ll be able to determine every sq.. In the identical line as IMPORTANT, label a textual content field beneath URGENT as “DO” and beneath NOT URGENT as “DECIDE.”
Transfer to the NOT IMPORTANT line and add a textual content field beneath URGENT as “DELEGATE” and beneath NOT URGENT as “DELETE.”
It ought to appear to be this:
Click to enlargeBeneath every quadrant label, right-click and select the “Tag as To Do” perform. (It’s the icon with a purple checkmark inside a sq..) Now, you’ll be able to learn your to-do guidelines for every.
TIP: Use heading two type for quadrant titles.
Step 3: Mind dump your duties
Write down all of your duties in your first quadrant. Sure, put all of them beneath DO for now. Pull them from the myriad notepads, sticky notes, and paper scraps in your desk. Pull them out of your cellphone’s notes, lists, and numerous apps. Add every little thing you’ll be able to consider – so long as they’re duties for which you’re personally accountable. For instance, in case your workforce is tasked to create a weblog article and your duty is to proof it, you’ll listing the duty as “proof weblog article” as a result of that’s all you’re answerable for. That is your private repository.
Right here’s an instance of my to-do listing with 15 duties, starting from checking emails to deciding on a brand new digital asset supervisor.
Click to enlargeStep 4: Transfer your duties to the quadrants
Transfer your duties from the DO placeholder to their acceptable quadrants. Don’t prioritize them inside the quadrant; simply transfer them to their rightful place. For the duties that can keep beneath DO, take into consideration what you’ll be able to full now – right this moment and solely right this moment. Contemplate what number of conferences you could have and different obligations you could have right this moment. It’s doable you may solely have one DO activity to work on right this moment, and that’s OK. It’s why the duty listing beneath DECIDE and DELEGATE will possible be longer. Don’t be afraid to maneuver issues into DELETE. It’s there for a cause.
After writing all your tasks, move them to the proper quadrant – DO, DECIDE, DELEGATE, or DELETE, says @thatgirlrandi via @CMIContent. #Productivity Click To Tweet
Right here’s how my instance appears to be like – three objects beneath DO, seven duties beneath DECIDE, 4 issues beneath DELEGATE, and one activity beneath DELETE:
Step 5: Prioritize the quadrant’s duties
Arrange the duties in every quadrant from most to least essential. Chances are you’ll notice some duties ought to transfer to a unique quadrant – that’s completely acceptable. For instance, if one thing in your DO listing can’t get accomplished by you right this moment, you should transfer it to DELEGATE. Delegating duties helps you elevate to a better stage of productiveness.
Right here’s how my matrix appears to be like with the ranked in precedence order. For instance, beneath DECIDE, the No. 1 precedence is to verify emails, whereas the No. 2 activity is to current winter marketing campaign ROI outcomes to C-suite with the sub-task (which initially was listed as a separate activity) beneath it – calculate winter marketing campaign ROI.
Click to enlargeTIP: Checklist the interdependent duties consecutively, then use the tab button to indent the sub-tasks beneath the primary activity to indicate the order of operations.
Step 6: Take motion
Herein lies the great thing about utilizing OneNote to create the matrix – the power so as to add tags. Proper-click on a activity and decide the field with a checkmark and gold star.
A couple of of my favourite task-management tags are:
- To-do precedence No. 1
- Focus on with <individual A>
- Focus on with supervisor
Whereas these tags come within the programmed listing, different tags might be custom-made. For instance, you may create a tag changing <Particular person A> with a colleague’s title or replace a challenge tag with a marketing campaign title. Add tags to indicate shoppers or platforms. Do no matter works for you.
I additionally reap the benefits of the flags characteristic, which is very useful for duties within the DECIDE quadrant. It allows you to date the duties, from generic labels like “tomorrow” or “subsequent week” to calendar dates. You may sync these duties to your Microsoft Outlook calendar and set reminders for his or her completion.
Along with utilizing tags and flags, I exploit brackets to make notes, corresponding to to whom I must delegate a activity or who wants to reply earlier than I can full a activity. Although I exploit the “Focus on with <Particular person>” tag, my bracketed notes let me see who with out hovering my mouse over the duty’s tick field.
Right here’s what this appears to be like like in my matrix:
Click to enlargeTIP: For those who discover it useful, use colour codes to differentiate themes or constant components, corresponding to a challenge or colleague.
Step 7: Make and comply with your guidelines
To maintain my matrix manageable, I comply with a couple of easy guidelines:
Maintain all duties seen on a single web page
If my activity listing creeps off the display screen or web page, I’ve too many duties. Too many duties imply it’s time to revise the duties in quadrants, notably DELEGATE and DELETE. I do know what you’re pondering: “What if I’ve 5 high priorities? There’s no manner I might hold all my duties above the fold.”
For those who attain that time, you’re not prioritizing correctly. You actually can solely achieve this a lot in a day.
Restrict your priorities to 3 a day
Put not more than three precedence duties in your DO quadrant. Yep, I stated three. Positive, you could have different objects in your DO quadrant every day, however solely three must be high priorities. Additionally, a activity in my DO quadrant doesn’t imply it is going to be accomplished that day. Its placement means I prioritize engaged on it right this moment.
TIP: For those who should full a activity right this moment, transfer every little thing else to DECIDE and DELEGATE. Let your friends know you aren’t accessible to work on something however that high precedence. Block out the day’s calendar so conferences are usually not added.
Transfer delegated duties off the matrix
When you delegate a activity, transfer it to a separate web page referred to as “delegated” and verify on its progress. For me, every day check-ins are a bit a lot, however each different day retains communication flowing with out being intrusive.
By following my guidelines, my matrix now has no duties beneath DELEGATE, solely three duties beneath DO, and some extra duties added to DECIDE:
Click to enlargeMy delegated duties web page consists of the 4 duties together with the names of these dealing with them:
Click to enlargeCreate a wins web page
Monitoring my wins – accomplished duties – is the very best results of my matrix. Any accomplished activity will get moved to the win web page. It serves as casual documentation of your work. I prefer to view my wins web page once I really feel I haven’t been productive and discover proof that I’ve accomplished duties.
My wins web page is a bulleted listing of duties copied and pasted from my Eisenhower Matrix once I full them. I add the completion date to every activity line. Often, I make a remark in brackets. Right here’s what that appears like for seven duties accomplished in February:
Click to enlargeThat’s my system. It might appear to be so much at first, so KISS it first – Maintain It Easy, Foolish. Don’t fear an excessive amount of about including flags and tags till you’re comfy transferring and including duties to the matrix. You’re creating this device that will help you – customise it to what works finest for you and knock these duties out of the park.
All instruments talked about within the article are recognized by the creator. When you have a device to counsel, please be happy so as to add it within the feedback.
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Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising Institute
