The Eisenhower Matrix: Your Secret Weapon Against Chaos at Work

“To do two things at once is to do neither." - Publilus Syrus

The Four Quadrants System

Living in the real world as a doctor, this book is far from over. It would be great if everyday I could do my morning review, write out my Sit Down and Anywhere Jobs and float through the day executing what I need to get done.

But as a medic, we realise that life doesn’t work like this. There is a never ending barrage of fires to put out, questions to answer and new problems to solve.

For some of us, this is the reason we signed up to do medicine. For others it is a source of anxiety and stress. With the passage of time I’ve moved from the former to the latter.

Add on top of this an environment that is designed to capture your attention every 40 to 50 seconds through advertising and social media. Now you can see how Hot Thinking You has the odds stacked against them.

To combat this, we will look at a very simple, but powerful, mental model. This will help you triage and prioritise the inevitable challenges that arise at work and at home.

The Urgent/Important Matrix

The underlying question you need to answer when deciding on prioritising incoming work is:

“Do I have to stop what I’m doing now, and focus on this new problem? Or, can this new problem wait for later?”

The Eisenhower Urgent/Important Matrix will help us answer this question.

Something is urgent if it is time critical.

Something is important if fits with achieving your goals. This may be a work goal, like passing an exam or succeeding at an interview. Or family goals, like being a responsible parent that sets a good example for your kids.

Let’s look at some examples for each category:

Urgent and Important - Box 1

As a surgeon, something that is urgent and important may be a patient with a brain haemorrhage. It is time critical. The patient will get worse if their operation gets delayed. It fits to my goals as a surgeon to provide care.