If you are a business owner always grasping for how to use your time efficiently, likely you’ve heard of the “Eisenhower Method” or “Eisenhower Matrix.”  It’s a simple and effective method for designating what, and how, to work on particular tasks. Basically, the idea is that you decide on how a task that comes across your desk falls into two categories: Urgent and Important. 

This matrix is helpful, BUT it has been complicated by our digital work life. The fundamental nature of our technology “muddies” our categories of urgent and important, so this requires some focused effort to ensure you are appropriately distinguishing where a task needs to be on the matrix. 

How the Eisenhower Matrix Works: 

A task, question, or project comes across your desk (or in your email inbox, Teams chat, Slack channel….you get the picture). In the Eisenhower Matrix, you designate that item into one of the following four categories: 

Urgent AND Important: take care of this yourself immediately. An “urgent” task is one that, of course, requires immediate attention, and an “Important” one contributes significantly to long-term goals 

Urgent but Unimportant: designate someone to take care of this 

Important but not Urgent:  set a due date and take care of this personally  

Neither Important nor Urgent: ignore these tasks. 

This can be a simple but effective way of addressing your daily or weekly work. However, modern digital tools flatten out these categories.  

Why Digital Tools Favor “Urgent” by Default 

Digital systems are optimized for delivery, not judgment. This means that ALL your digital systems treat everything the same. With default settings, there is no filter or framework for how tasks and requests are brought to your attention. For example: 

A Teams ping about lunch preferences AND ping about a legitimate production issue or security threat are brought to you in the exact same way: 

  • The same alert sound 
  • The same banner 
  • The same screen interruption 

This leads to a dangerous inversion: Urgent FEELS important. Everything FEELS Urgent. So, what is Important gets lost in the muck. 

Applying Eisenhower Thinking Practically in the Digital Age 

Whether you use or care about this Eisenhower matrix doesn’t really matter. Whatever mechanism you use to make similar decisions, the digital tools that we all now use have muddied the waters.  

So, this is about engineering your digital environment so your decision-making matrix can function efficiently.  Last week, we talked about 4 digital habits that can help your business culture.   

As a reminder, here are those habits: 

  • Work in undisturbed time blocks (of at least 25 minutes). Your team should know to leave you alone during certain times of the day or week, unless a real emergency pops up 
  • Use Tools to LIMIT distractions – use settings, notifications, flags, and other features to prevent everything from seeming Urgent 
  • Create policies and procedures that reinforce best practices (for everyone on your team, not just yourself. For example, everyone should know what kind of request or task belongs in an email as opposed to a Teams chat. 
  • Safety or Complex Tasks are Digital No-Go areas (or, Digital-Limited areas when digital tools are necessary for the task)

However you decide to handle the situation, at minimum you’ll want to develop an awareness of how digital tools affect your time and your decision-making.  Don’t get used by the tools.  Make sure that you are using them.