The Eisenhower Matrix: A simple tool for allocating tasks. Eisenhower Priority Matrix, one of the time management techniques

Many people with periodic constancy are faced with the problem of excessive workload, it is not surprising that in such a situation it becomes unlikely to have time to complete their plans. As a rule, this is due to unrealistic planning. We take on too many tasks, sometimes not even trying to determine which of them to do first and what to give up.

To avoid congestion and ineffective actions, it is necessary to reduce the list of tasks, abandoning the superfluous. Techniques such as Eisenhower priority matrix, it is considered one of the effective methods time management.

Its essence lies in the fact that all cases are evaluated according to two criteria, importance and urgency. Accordingly, tasks are divided into four types:

1. Important and urgent - failure to do so will result in negative consequences. These tasks are high priority and must be completed first. Ideally, there should be no such cases; this is achieved through a responsible approach to solving problems of the second type.
2. Important, but not urgent - set a deadline for their implementation, and systematically solve these cases, otherwise they become important and urgent.
3. Urgent, but not important - free up time for their implementation and solve as much as possible.
4. Not important and not urgent - these are things that have no value in the future and are more of a routine nature. It would be fair to divide this type into several components, the first includes tasks of a domestic nature, they have little value, but their implementation is all necessary for a more comfortable life. The second refers to the so-called time wasters, activities such as computer games, viewing information that does not have any value. The first component requires individual consideration, it is desirable to completely abandon the second, thereby freeing up additional time.

One of the difficulties in applying the matrix is ​​the difficulty in determining importance. And here, of course, first of all, you need to look at the significance of the consequences of each case, as if looking into the future.

From this matrix, we can identify four ways to use your time.

• Routine daily activities.
• A senseless pastime, here the name speaks for itself, it is a waste of time in a void that leaves nothing behind.
• Waste of time on non-essential things that leave no benefit behind.
• Doing something that is of great value, or lays the foundation for the future, develops or brings pleasure.

Understanding this brings clarity and awareness to what you are spending your time on. This, in turn, gives you the opportunity to use your potential more rationally.

Eisenhower Priority Matrix

Priority Matrix- a tool for processing a large amount of numerical data obtained during the construction of matrix charts in order to identify priority data. P It is used mainly in cases where there is a need to present numerical data from matrix charts in a more visual form.

Most of Of the seven quality management tools considered, it is widely used to transform customer requirements into quality parameters of the product expected by him and, accordingly, into quality parameters of the planning, development, production, installation and improvement of the product.

16.Structuring the quality function (QFD).

Mitsubishi was first used in 1972. The essence of the SFC method is that customer requirements must be “deployed” and specified in stages, starting with pre-investment research and ending with pre-sales preparation. It is applied to newly developed products.

This method is a technology for designing products and processes that allows you to transform the wishes of the consumer into technical requirements to products and parameters of their production processes.

The main idea of ​​the SFC technology is to understand that between consumer properties ( actual figures quality) and the product parameters established in the standards (auxiliary quality indicators) there is a big difference. Also, the task is to formulate clear goals based on the desires of consumers and customers.

SFC method - This expert method, which uses a tabular way of presenting data, and with a specific form of tables (matrix chart), called "houses of quality" (Fig. 6.1.1). These tables display the relationship between actual quality indicators (consumer properties) and auxiliary indicators (technical requirements).

The process of planning new products within the framework of the CFC method consists of eight stages.

1. clarification and clarification of consumer requirements . The task of the SFC is precisely to make the consumer's opinion understandable to the engineer.

The task of the manufacturer is to various methods convert the requirements (“voice”) of the consumer into engineering characteristics of the product.

2. ranking of consumer requirements . For ranking, it is necessary to evaluate the ratings of consumer requirements that were determined at the first stage. The list of requirements is sorted by importance. Importance is recorded as a rating.

3. development of engineering characteristics . This stage is performed by a special development team created for this case. At the first stage of work, it is tasked to compile a list of engineering characteristics of the future product. 4. calculation of dependencies of consumer requirements and engineering characteristics.

At this stage, we establish the relationship between customer requirements and engineering characteristics in order to determine which engineering characteristics most strongly influence the satisfaction of certain customer requirements, which have little, and which do not add value to the product for the consumer at all. (black circle - strong connection (9b), white circle - medium connection (3b), triangle - weak connection (1b))

5. building a roof ”, in which the relationships between the engineering characteristics themselves are affixed. The roof is filled with symbols indicating a positive or negative correlation between the relevant characteristics of the product from the standpoint of the interests of the consumer. (If there are contradictions - “-”, if there are no contradictions - “+”)

6. we determine the weight indicators of the characteristics of engineering characteristics, taking into account the rating of the importance of consumer requirements, as well as the relationship between customer requirements and engineering performance.

7. technical limitations are taken into account. Not all engineering performance values ​​are achievable. in the next line of the matrix, expert assessments of the technical feasibility of those values ​​of engineering characteristics that are most required by consumers are put down. With this in mind, adjusted engineering performance targets are obtained.

8. taking into account the influence of competitors .. Competitors are evaluated by how well they are able to fulfill each of the customer requirements identified in the first step. * - the first competitor - the second competitor.

As a result of the above procedures, the initial data for the technical specifications for the design and development of new products are obtained.

The construction of the SFC matrix, obtaining engineering characteristics is the first phase of four (product planning - planning of product components - process design - production design), which together "deploy" consumer requirements not only into engineering characteristics, but further - into process indicators and all production.

You have accumulated a whole mountain of cases and you are tired of raking it endlessly?

Do you constantly have new tasks and you do not know in what order to complete them?

You don't know exactly what needs to be done as soon as possible, and what can be put on the back burner?

Do you find it difficult to prioritize tasks in order to more effectively achieve your goals?

To solve these problems, many methods of organizing and prioritizing cases have been developed. All of them differ in complexity, accuracy and clarity. To make it easier to use, there are many different instruments: special diaries, computer programs, online organizers, mobile applications etc.

One of the most popular methods is eisenhower matrix or priority matrix. It was developed by US President Dwight Eisenhower to organize his affairs and carry them out more efficiently when he began to suffer from the problems described at the beginning of the article.

To apply this method, each case must be assessed according to two criteria: whether it is important or not and urgent or not. For visualization, a rectangular table (matrix) with 4 cells is used:

Important-Urgent: These are the most important things to do in the near future. Someone is happy with such things, so to speak, they mobilize a person and he completes them faster. And for some even a small amount of such cases can create emotional tension, stress. Then a person can fall into a stupor, panic and put off such things, although he realizes that they need to be done as quickly as possible. But due to the rush to implement them, the quality of the results may be lower than expected. Therefore, it is better to strive to ensure that this area is empty. Such cases may appear due to erroneous planning, incorrect determination of the required resources for their implementation, lack of experience, inadequate assessment, force majeure, laziness, etc. When such cases appear, you need to immediately analyze them, determine the reasons why an important matter has become urgent, eliminate them and quickly implement such cases.

Not important - Urgent: these are cases that for some reason have become urgent, but their implementation does not particularly affect the achievement of goals. Usually in this area there are "foreign" things that are required to be done, and not that you want. It is better to delegate such cases or abandon them, of course, if this does not lead to negative consequences (fines, punishments, etc.). A large number of of business in this area may indicate that a person is highly dependent on someone who sets tasks for him and uses him as a resource. This means that a person cannot fully engage in his own affairs, which means that he does not approach personal goals. In this case, you need to become freer, determine who is imposing goals, get rid of relations with him or make them mutually beneficial. Therefore, it is also better to make this area empty.

Important - Not urgent: these are the most important cases that do not have a deadline or it is still large enough. These tasks must be completed immediately after all urgent tasks are completed. The presence of the majority of cases in this area speaks of effective planning, prioritization and management of one's life. Such cases are performed evenly, in a comfortable mode (but not slow), and the quality of the results usually exceeds expectations. Therefore, these cases have the best effect on the achievement of goals, so you should try to ensure that most of the cases are in this area.

Not important - not urgent: these are the most useless things that you should not do or you can do in your free time, for example, for relaxation, entertainment. Such cases, as a rule, appear due to insufficient planning or incorrect setting of goals. If it is impossible to refuse such cases, then it is better to replace them with similar, but more important things, which will be in the "Important-Not Urgent" area. For example, instead of doing "play a game" you could do "practice a skill" or "play a sport." Also try to keep this area empty.

Thus, according to this method, useful area is an " Important - Not urgent". Therefore, you need to plan things in such a way that most of them end up in this area (but you need to do this adequately, and not in such a way that a case was placed here, but in fact it had to be completed yesterday). Then the achievement of goals will be the most successful, effective and comfortable.

Use the following to determine the order in which tasks should be performed. rule: do the most important and urgent things first, then the urgent unimportant ones, then the important non-urgent ones. And non-urgent, unimportant things may not be worth doing at all.

To make the method even more accurate, you can use not 4 areas, but scales " Importance" and " Urgency» with values ​​from 0 to 10. Then each case must be subjectively assessed: how important it is on a scale from 0 to 10, and how urgent it is also on a scale from 0 to 10. Then the case is located in the cell of the matrix at the intersection of the assigned values. Similar to the original version of the method, the area of ​​important and not urgent matters is considered to be the best, i.e. with importance 5-10 and urgency 0-5.

For convenient use this method in a special section - Important-Urgent.

It automatically arranges cases based on their Urgency and Importance, which are set in the case details panel on the Motivation tab. The service supports both variants of the method: both in the form of 4 areas (2x2 mode), and in the form of 2 scales (10x10 mode). Cases can be viewed in their respective cells, moved to other cells for more precise planning, and decisions can be made about the order in which they should be completed.

After the distribution of all cases according to such a matrix of priorities, a general, clear picture will appear, which cases are the most important and urgent. Based on this matrix, you can easily determine which things are the highest priority and are best done first.

As a result, with the help of the Eisenhower matrix, you will forever get rid of the “mountain” of cases, you will be able to quickly prioritize new cases (put them in the right area), you will easily determine the order of doing things, which in general will help you achieve any goals more efficiently and successfully.

We hope this method you will like it, it will help you realize your cherished dreams faster and make your life even happier.

Write your opinion about it below, it is very important to us!

And tell your friends about the article. Perhaps it will be useful to them.

Sincerely, Team of the project "Personal development and self-realization"

Head: Sergey Marchenko. Creator of "CyRiOS" and website, practical psychologist, self-realization coach, life coach, consultant, systems engineer

In the endless stream of everyday activities, you can easily get confused, because every day there are more and more of them. Yesterday's unfinished business becomes today's, and what we did not have time to do today is automatically shifted to tomorrow. As a result, so many things can accumulate that you can’t make out later: what has been done, what is in the process, and what else is just waiting in the wings.

Such or detailed situations often occur in people who do not pay due attention to the process of planning their activities. Naturally, skills are not taught at school, and many parents and other people who act as educators in the process of our development often do not really know how to plan their activities themselves, although this is not at all difficult. It just doesn't get the attention it deserves.

However, today there are many excellent planning techniques that allow you to learn how to rationally use your time resource and extract the maximum benefit from this process for yourself. But in this article we will not consider all these techniques, but will give an example of only one, which is distinguished by its simplicity and effectiveness. This technique is called the "Eisenhower Matrix".

The Eisenhower Matrix is ​​one of the most popular time management tools and is used by many people around the world: from ordinary employees and middle managers to CEOs of large firms and world-famous corporations. The founder of this matrix is ​​the 34th President of the United States, Dwight David Eisenhower. As you might guess, this man was very busy and had to do a lot of all sorts of things related to his activities. For this reason, he was engaged in optimizing his work schedule and to-do list. The result of his research was the matrix we are considering.

The meaning of the Eisenhower matrix is ​​mainly to learn how to correctly distribute all your tasks, distinguish between important and urgent, not urgent from the least important, and also to reduce the time to the maximum for doing any business that does not give any significant results. Let's talk about how it all works in practice.

The essence of the Eisenhower matrix

The Eisenhower matrix consists of four quadrants, the basis of which are two axes - this is the axis of importance (vertically) and the axis of urgency (horizontally). As a result, it turns out that each quadrant differs in its qualitative indicators. All tasks and cases are recorded in each of the quadrants, thanks to which an extremely clear and objective picture of what should be done first, what should be done second, and what should not be done at all is formed. All this is quite simple, but it will not be superfluous to give a few explanations in any case.

Quadrant A: important and urgent matters

With ideal planning, this quadrant of the matrix should remain empty, since the appearance of important and urgent cases is an indicator of disorganization and the assumption of a blockage. This part of the schedule fills up for many people due to their inherent laziness and incorrect prioritization. Naturally, at times such cases can appear in every person, but if this happens daily, then it's time to pay attention to.

So, the appearance of cases in the A quadrant should be avoided. And for this, it is only necessary to fulfill the points of the remaining quadrants on time. But if something is still worth entering into the first quadrant, then this:

• Cases, the failure of which adversely affects the achievement of goals
• Things that, if not done, can cause difficulties and troubles
• Cases related to health

It is also important to remember that there is such a thing as "delegation". This means that when there are cases in your A quadrant that can be delegated to someone, this opportunity should definitely be used in order to resolve other important and urgent matters as soon as possible.

Quadrant B: important but not urgent

The second quadrant deserves the most attention because the affairs that are in it are the most priority and promising, and it is from them that the daily tasks of any person should consist. It has been noticed that people who are mainly engaged in the affairs of this quadrant achieve the greatest success in life, advance in the service, earn more money have enough free time and live happy and fulfilling lives.

Pay attention also to the fact that the lack of urgency allows you to approach the solution of any problems more deliberately and constructively, and this, in turn, allows a person to reveal his potential to the fullest, independently think over all the nuances of his activity and manage the time frame of his affairs. But here, among other things, you need to remember that things that are in the B quadrant, if they are not done in a timely manner, can easily fall into the A quadrant, becoming even more important and requiring speedy completion.

Experienced time management professionals recommend that the B quadrant include all current affairs related to the main activity, planning and analysis of work, training and compliance optimal schedule and . Those. everything that makes up our daily routine.

Quadrant C: urgent but not important

The activities that are in this quadrant are for the most part distracting and do not bring the person closer to the intended results. Often they just get in the way of focusing on really important tasks and reduce efficiency. The main thing when working with the matrix is ​​not to confuse urgent matters from the C quadrant with urgent matters from the A quadrant. Otherwise, there is confusion and what should be done in the first place remains in the background. Always remember your own and learn to distinguish the important from the secondary.

Things in the C quadrant include, for example, meetings or negotiations imposed by someone from the side, birthday celebrations of not very close people, sudden chores around the house, elimination of distractions that are not vital but require attention (a vase broke, a microwave broke a stove, a light bulb burned out, etc.), as well as all sorts of other things that do not move you forward, but only slow you down.

Quadrant D: Not Urgent or Important

Tasks related to the last quadrant do not bring any benefit at all. In many cases it is useful not only to deal with them last, but not to deal with them at all. Although you definitely need to know about them, because. they are the time wasters.

Another feature of the cases from this group is also interesting: they are very attractive to many people - these cases are easy to perform and give pleasure, allow you to relax and have a good time. Therefore, resisting the temptation to work out with them can be quite problematic. But it is absolutely necessary to do so.

In the D quadrant, you can write down such things as talking on the phone with friends about something unimportant, unnecessary correspondence or spending time on social networks, watching TV shows and various “stupefying” TV shows, computer games, etc. Of course, every person should periodically relax and somehow entertain himself, but there are more interesting and developing ways for this: reading, visiting gyms and swimming pools, trips to nature, etc. If you can’t or don’t want to completely rid yourself of doing things from the D quadrant, then you need to postpone their implementation at least until the moment when the things from the B and C quadrants are completed, and the time that will be devoted to the affairs of the D quadrant should be minimized. Here the well-known proverb will be appropriate for everyone: “Cause is time, fun is an hour.”

As soon as you master the Eisenhower matrix and learn how to correctly distribute your affairs within it, you will notice that you have quite a lot of new free time, you manage to do everything on time and without haste, all your affairs are in order, goals are achieved one after another, and you yourself are almost always in good mood and cheerful mood. It's all about being organized and focused. Probably, you yourself notice from time to time that disorganized people are always in the cycle of some incomprehensible affairs, they are always busy with something stupid, but “very important”, they look tired and annoyed. Distinctive Features many can be cited. But this is not what is important, but the fact that if you and I do not want to have similar results, then we must act differently. Namely, we must be organized, clearly understand what and when we need to do, and why we are doing all this. And the Eisenhower matrix is ​​great for this.

We wish you good luck and successful mastering your new skill!

Fundamentals of project management Presnyakov Vasily Fedorovich