THE LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR

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The Eisenhower Matrix

For today’s issue I wanted to do a revamp of a previous post on the Eisenhower Matrix - but apparently I’ve never written an issue on it!?!

I still don’t quite believe that and think my search isn’t working well, but nonetheless. This amazing 2x2 decision matrix is top of mind after working with multiple entrepreneurs in the past week who are stuck responding to the urgent instead of knowing what’s really important.

The most typical symptom of a business leader stuck in the urgent is one who can’t make time for a 1-day planning session with their team. Since most leaders of entrepreneurial companies are also in a few functional seats, they’re working IN the business every day and don’t make time to work ON the business, ever really. And taking a whole day to work on the business feels crazy for many entrepreneurial leaders.

That’s why the simple act of committing to spending a day working on the business alone can be so transformational for these leaders. Without committing, and paying a large sum of money to a coach who manages that space and time, they’ll literally never do it.

This is a trap most people fall into - urgent tasks hitting them over the head in their inbox, calls, meeting requests, employee requests - until life feels like an uncontrollable blur of responding to urgency with zero time spent on what is really important. Or god forbid - what they actually want to work on.

I have deep empathy for everyone in this situation, as someone who used to live in response mode, and also as a human who isn’t perfect and still periodically gets stuck in the urgent.

To all my friends out there - there is a better way.

And the Eisenhower Matrix is an excellent framework for organizing your work. Practice it religiously and it will completely change your life.

The Eisenhower Matrix

Similar to the EOS® Delegate and Elevate tool, here’s how you complete this matrix:

1. List your tasks/jobs/projects, in a given day or week

2. Categorize them according to the 4 categories

3. Follow the instructions - Do, Decide, Delegate, Delete

It’s VERY simple. Not always easy to completely folllow of course, but the point is to find a few things you can delete, delegate, decide, do, on a consistent basis every time you do this. And over a period of diligence - whether it’s a few quarters, or a few years, you gravitate towards focusing your work on only doing urgent/important things immediately, and having structured and scheduled time to complete important/not-urgent work.

How to start using it

This is simple - start and don’t overthink it. When you’re planning out next week, take 10 minutes to list out all your tasks, to-dos, meetings, and categorize them. Is there 1 thing you can eliminate? 1 thing you can delegate? 1 thing you can schedule to complete during the week? And then what are the things that need to be done by you this week?

This should take less than 20 minutes total, I bet you’ll find it useful.

Please let me know how it goes!

Talk to you next week,

Mike