It may be because you’ve not prioritized the art of prioritization.

Whether you’re working from home or the office, getting productive is not rocket science, you just need some simple tools to use to get everything under control.

20 minutes of prioritization can buy you 20 days of peace, progress and productivity.

The first thing you want to do is to make a list of all the tasks you can think of. These are tasks that you have to do or want to do.

Many people tend to only list down work or business-related tasks like:

– Projects

– Assignments

– Meetings

– Appointments

– E-mails or calls.

Don’t limit yourself to only work-related tasks. If you can think of it, most likely it belongs in one of the four boxes.

You can also add:

– House chores

– Errands

– Leisure activities

– Hobbies and interests

– Quality time with others

– Volunteer or charity work

Being productive need not be limited by your scope of work.

Now that you have a list, you can start prioritizing.

To be effective at prioritizing your tasks, you can use a simple framework known as The Eisenhower Matrix.

Open a word document or grab a piece of paper. Draw a four-box grid (Alternatively, you can download the worksheet here).

The Eisenhower Matrix, named after former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is a highly effective prioritization tool that has been used by the most successful leaders. It’s a tool you use to categorize your tasks into 4 distinct groups.

It uses two axes: Importance and Urgency.

Important tasks are tasks that have outcomes that advance you towards your own goals, whether personal or professional. They can also be tasks that add massive value to your personal growth and well-being. 

Remember that these tasks must be important by your definition, not anyone else’s.

Urgent tasks are tasks that demand your immediate attention but tend to be associated with someone else’s goals. When we don’t prioritize effectively, we tend to get sucked into a loop of constantly doing urgent tasks because of the short-term consequences of not doing them.

I’d classify something as urgent if it has to be done by the next 1-2 weeks.

In the first box, write the header:

1) High Importance & High Urgency.

These are tasks that should demand your utmost attention. Doing them will add significant value to your life and not doing them may lead to serious consequences.

In the second box, write the header:

2) High Importance & Low Urgency.

These are tasks that are important to you but there are few or no tangible consequences for not doing them. These tasks usually have to do with personal growth, putting systems in place, maintenance work or building relationships.

Because of the lack of immediate consequences for not doing them, it’s easy to skip them. You’ll need commitment, self-discipline and some delayed gratification to get them done.

In the third box, write the header:

3) Low Importance & High Urgency.

These tend to be menial tasks like checking e-mails or filling in paperwork. They’re usually what other people want you to do. As much as possible, reschedule, automate or delegate them to others.

In the fourth box, write the header:

4) Low Importance & Low Urgency.

These tend to be low-value activities that don’t contribute much to your life. Cancel, avoid or minimize time spent doing them.

By adding non-work related items, you will have an overview of how you’d like to spend your time and prioritize things that bring you joy, not just things you’re required to do.

Once you have drawn the grid, categorize all the tasks you need to accomplish in one of the four groups.

Filling in the four boxes is only the first step. Here are 3 tips to execute effectively once you’ve categorized your tasks.

3 Tips to Maximize Productivity Using The Eisenhower Matrix

Tip #1: Complete tasks in sequence from Priority 1 to Priority 4.

According to the Eisenhower principle, when you go about executing on your tasks, tasks in box 1 should be of the highest priority. Tasks in box 4 should be of the lowest priority.

First, execute immediately on tasks in 1) High Importance & High Urgency.

Next, spend time on tasks in 2) High Importance & Low Urgency.

Then, do the tasks in 3) Low Importance & High Urgency.

And once the first three are out of the way, do the tasks in 4) Low Importance & Low Urgency.

Filling in the four boxes is only the first step. Here are 3 tips to execute effectively once you’ve categorized your tasks.

Tip #2: Assign time-blocks or deadlines to all the tasks.

After you have filled in the four boxes, assign a deadline or time-block to each of the tasks.

A time-block is a specific time of the day to focus on completing a task.

Example: Work on report – 2 hours, 2pm-4pm.

Personally, I prefer time-blocks over deadlines. Time-blocks are action-focused, while deadlines tend to be outcome-focused, which make sense for urgent items.

Low urgent tasks like exercise, meditation or watching Netflix tend to not have deadlines, so time blocks would be more appropriate.

However, do note that if you’re not careful, the tasks that are categorized under High Importance & Low Urgency in box 2 tend to get overshadowed by the Low Importance & High Urgency tasks in box 3.

A simple way to prevent this from happening is to have a fixed time to complete those Important/Not Urgent tasks.

You can do this by filling them into your planner, setting deadlines or committing a fixed slot in the day for you to work on these tasks undisturbed.

Tip #3: In each box, assign a rank to each task.

The Eisenhower Matrix allows you to make a distinction between what’s important and what’s urgent.

But it doesn’t exactly tell you how to compare and prioritize within the categories.

What counts as high and what counts as low? This is a question you have to answer for yourself.

You can be even more effective simply by doing one more step: ranking each task. Within each of the categories, rank your items in terms of which ones make sense for you to do first.

Once you have a ranking to follow, all you need to do is do your tasks in sequence and not overthink things.

My recommendation is to always start with the most difficult tasks first, so that you can ride off the momentum of getting it out of the way early.