Many engineering leaders share a common problem: too many things to do, and not enough time to do them all. In my coaching practice I often work with my clients to optimize their calendars, and one of my primary tools for this process is a modified Eisenhower Matrix.

The Eisenhower Matrix

At some point in their career, most of my clients have encountered a 2 by 2 matrix, divided into Important / Not Important on one Axis, and Urgent / Not Urgent on the other. However, most of them haven’t heard its name: An Eisenhower Matrix. The name originates from a quote attributed to the former US President:

“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Visually, an Eisenhower matrix looks like this:

The idea is to independently consider each task we have in terms of importance and urgency. The premise being that urgent tasks often get our time, at the expense of what’s truly important.

Using the Eisenhower Matrix is conceptually simple. Starting with an empty two by two, add each task to the board in the appropriate quadrant based on whether it is Important / Not Important and Urgent / Not Urgent.

Once you’ve charted all your tasks, take the recommended actions (Do Now, Schedule, Delegate, etc) for each quadrant.

Why The Eisenhower Matrix Doesn’t Work

The way this process falls down is that most leaders are already doing some version of it in their head. As a result, plotting their existing tasks on the two by two results in a large number of Important, or Important + Urgent tasks being identified. With little to Schedule or Stop Doing, there is not much action that can be taken as a result. So the results just aren’t effective, and life goes on much as it did before the exercise.

Online articles about the Eisenhower Matrix don’t address this, often giving toy examples of Low Urgency, Low Importance tasks such as “Watching TV”, or “Scrolling Social Media”. In my experience, these are not the problems high performing leaders face.

Fixing the Eisenhower Matrix

For me, the key to fixing the Eisenhower Matrix is to understand that startup leaders are always in triage mode. With finite resources and a relentless demand to move faster, leaders have to be a little bit ruthless with their time. Just like an emergency room team can’t do nothing as the ambulances arrive because they have finite beds, a startup leader must prioritize, even if that means things they really want to do must be deferred, possibly forever.

I’ve found that the Eisenhower Matrix can be fixed with a single change:

Divide the tasks into quadrants at the end of the process.

The VPE Coach Process

Start with an empty board (Not a 2 by 2) with axis:

Then, add each task to the board by its importance and urgency relative to other items. The absolute position of tasks is not important, but each axis should be (roughly) a stack rank of the tasks in that dimension.

When done, count the total number of tasks on the board. In this case, 13.

Draw a vertical line such that half the tasks fall to the left of it, and half to the right. Draw a horizontal line such that half the tasks fall above it, and half below:

Finally, label each quadrant (Do, Schedule, Delegate, Stop Doing), and take the recommended action.

When you follow this process, the outcome is that about 25% of our tasks will fall into each quadrant, so we’re never stuck. Because we ordered them by relative urgency and relative importance, the things we label “Low Urgency, Low Importance” in this process are simply the lowest urgency, least important things we have, even if they are still objectively important.

Armed with the results of this approach, we can move to action and start to reclaim our time.