Are you someone who puts off studying until the last minute?
Feeling swamped by work or other activities that keep you from focusing on your studies?
The Eisenhower Matrix is a tool that can help you get more organised and boost your productivity by teaching you how to prioritise tasks. It shows you which activities are worth your time and which aren’t.
Learn how to use this matrix to set your goals and achieve success in your studies.
The Eisenhower Matrix, also known as the Urgent-important matrix, helps you figure out what tasks are most important. By using this tool, you can spot your top priorities and tell apart tasks that have a big impact from those that don’t.
It’s great for helping you think about tasks in four categories:
Place tasks that need your immediate attention in this quadrant — for example, studying to retake an exam in 72 hours.
Try to avoid having too many urgent and important tasks.
Juggling multiple urgent tasks can be stressful and overwhelming. It also increases the chance of missing deadlines and creates extra pressure from multitasking.
Focus most of your time here.
This is where you plan and organise. For example, prioritise tasks and schedule your projects or studies based on their complexity and deadlines.
Managing tasks in this quadrant helps you avoid the stress of last-minute work.
With a clear schedule, you’ll feel more relaxed and confident, knowing you have enough time to prepare for exams and complete assignments before they become urgent.
By regularly working on tasks in this quadrant two, you reduce the number of urgent problems in quadrant one.
Delegate these tasks or handle them in your spare time. They might seem urgent, but they’re not critical. For example, responding to certain emails or texts from friends.
Learn to say no when you have important tasks to complete. If you’re always focusing on others’ needs or trying to please everyone, it’s easy to fall behind on your own tasks.
Emails and texts can look urgent, but resist the urge to focus on them — respond during your free time.
These tasks are distractions. Limit your time on them to 5% or less. For example, spending too much time on social media, watching TV, or playing video games can become habits that are hard to break.
If these distractions are keeping you from focusing on your work, find a quiet space at home or book a study room at the library for a better environment to prepare for exams or complete assignments.
Wondering where to place activities like exercise, preparing healthy meals or participating in certain social activities?
Self care and good mental health are crucial. If you think you might neglect them, consider putting them in quadrant 2 to ensure you make time for them.
Now that you’ve already familiar with the four quadrants and what to put in each one, here’s how to start managing your tasks using the Eisenhower Matrix:
Step 1: List your tasks
Create a list of all the things you need to do. This includes anything that requires your attention, including work-related and personal obligations.
Step 2: Assess their urgency and importance
Determine how urgent and important each task is. Urgency means how soon it needs to be done, while importance reflects how much it impacts your long-term goals.
Step 3: Put tasks in their respective quadrants
Sort each task into its corresponding quadrant according to your evaluation of its urgency and importance.
Step 4: Prioritise within each quadrant
Prioritise tasks further within each quadrant based on their specific urgency or importance. This step helps you start with the most important tasks.
Step 5: Take action
Once tasks are categorised and prioritised, it’s time to take action. Start with Quadrant 1 tasks that need immediate attention. Then, you can consider delegating the tasks in Quadrant 3 to the right people before moving on to Quadrant 2 tasks to stay ahead of deadlines and manage your time effectively.
Step 6: Review and adjust
Regularly review and adjust your matrix. As prioritise and deadlines change, you might need to rearrange tasks. Update your matrix weekly or whenever new tasks come up.