10 Eisenhower Matrix Templates to Prioritize Work

Create focused, targeted, and organized PR campaigns—no matter who’s planning them—with a public relations plan template. No matter the project, human resources teams can use our template to set priorities, track progress, and streamline recurring work. Starting a project without considering risks is, well, a big risk to take.

Quadrant two is the “schedule” quadrant, and this is where you’ll place any tasks that are not urgent but are still important. Because these tasks affect your long-term goals but don’t need to be done right away, you can schedule these tasks for later. Important tasks may not require immediate attention, but these tasks help you achieve your long-term goals. Just because these tasks are less urgent doesn’t mean they don’t matter. You’ll need to thoughtfully plan for these tasks so you can use your resources efficiently.

Related Templates

Employees who engaged in self-mastery activities such as exercise or volunteering were more motivated the following day. Employees who relaxed with yoga, meditation, or by listening to music approached the workday more calmly. Eisenhower himself was a well-known bridge player — even playing nightly up to D-Day — and was famously criticized for his many golf trips while in office.

If you’re already feeling a time crunch, you’ll likely continue to prioritize tasks that keep you focused on the clock. An Eisenhower Matrix template visually sorts tasks by urgency and importance, letting you prioritize effectively. It’s a great way to effectively manage time by focusing on what truly matters and trimming down less crucial and unnecessary tasks. A project’s scope is just as important as its budget or timeline. Prioritize this crucial part of project management by creating a project scope management plan template. The drive to complete tasks because of real or assumed deadlines means you take on tasks that aren’t actually meaningful to you.

What is the Eisenhower Matrix?

Prevent major issues from occurring in your project with a risk management plan template. Learn how to create an Eisenhower Matrix template in Asana so you can prioritize and sort your tasks based on their urgency and importance. The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. Use this Eisenhower Matrix template to clarify what needs your energy and what you can hand off to someone else. In the corporate world, this matrix is often used in project management and team collaboration.

That way you can prioritize tasks based on how much bang for your buck they deliver. This template is great for teams and organizations that want to make a strategic plan to tackle an upcoming sprint. Get more out of the time you have by boosting your what are the 2 axes in the eisenhower box productivity with an Eisenhower Matrix. Put your project, work, and home tasks in each quadrant according to their level of importance and urgency. This simple daily exercise ensures you’re focusing most of your energy on critical responsibilities.

Eisenhower Priority Matrix Template for Microsoft Word and Google Docs

Ultimately, the Eisenhower matrix is the best way to prioritize a to-do list. Once you’ve labeled your tasks by color, these colors will directly translate to your Eisenhower Matrix. Your blue tasks are your “delegate” tasks for quadrant three, and your red tasks are your “delete” tasks for quadrant four. These unimportant, non-urgent distractions are simply getting in the way of you accomplishing your goals.

However, with continued use of distraction their moods and motivation worsened as the week continued. In other words, distraction in moderation was ok, but habitual distraction resulted in less work satisfaction overall. How do we decide which task to give our attention to at any given moment? Collab to drag priorities into place, gather feedback through cursor chats, and add new voices to the mix with audio functions.

The 4 Quadrants of the Eisenhower Matrix

You can quickly assign a label to any task by typing “@” into the task field. This will bring up a list of your current labels to select from. You can change the color of a label and add emojis to make it stand out on your list. Employees who engaged in distraction activities to avoid or ignore problems, like watching excessive TV, did show a renewed positivity the following workday.

If it is not important or urgent, it may distract from main goals. According to Covey, all of the important pieces of our lives and projects should be within quadrant II, and most of our time should be focused on completing those tasks. The other quadrants can look deceptively important, but overall, the tasks in quadrant II should be our priority. Covey discusses how effectiveness goes up considerably once you focus most on quadrant II. When used to its fullest extent, this Eisenhower Matrix method will help you to prioritize, organize, and create discipline as you work to complete your to-do list tasks. You’ll tackle these tasks right after you tackle the tasks in quadrant one.

Learn

The lower right quadrant is for tasks you don’t need to do at all. Think about the tasks that allow you to procrastinate and keep you from getting things done. Things like scrolling through social media might fall into this category. Tasks in the upper right quadrant are important, but not pressing. These are things you can schedule for the future and that you need to put in your calendar.

Whether you’re a manager or an individual contributor, you’ll know exactly what to focus on at the beginning of each day—all priorities fall into Do, Schedule, Delegate, or Delete. No matter your best intentions, you need more than motivation to knock out your to-dos. An action item template—where you decide the who, what, and when of every task—can help you organize your workflows and get more done. Create an implementation plan template to break down your business goals into manageable, achievable steps.

Paid plans

Let’s explore a transformative journey with ClickUp’s unique Eisenhower Matrix Templates. They’ll guide you to a whole new level of task prioritization, wiping out chaos with precision-designed matrix templates. Use this blank Eisenhower Matrix template for Microsoft Word and Google Docs to customize your daily, weekly, and monthly task lists. This is a great way to show your manager how you prioritize your workload. If you’re a project manager, share this document with stakeholders so that they understand how you categorize project tasks.

• Use Asana’s event marketing plan template to increase event awareness, build excitement, and drive audience attendance.
• Even if you have a lot of tasks on your to-do list, try to limit your tasks to 10 items per quadrant.
• They are important for the overall success of a project or achieving long-term goals, and should be where most of your energy is focused.
• You’ll need to thoughtfully plan for these tasks so you can use your resources efficiently.
• You can use it every day, every week, or whenever your to-do list feels out of control.